Paper Is White

by Hilary Zaid

Overview

When oral historian Ellen Margolis and her girlfriend decide to get married, Ellen realizes that she can’t go through with a wedding until she tells her grandmother. There’s only one problem: her grandmother is dead. As the two young women beat their own early path toward marriage equality, Ellen’s longing to plumb that voluminous silence draws her into a clandestine entanglement with a wily Holocaust survivor—a woman with more to hide than tell—and a secret search for buried history. If there is to be a wedding Ellen must decide: How much do you need to share to be true to the one you love? Set in ebullient, 1990s Dot-com era San Francisco, Paper is White is a novel about the gravitational pull of the past and the words we must find to make ourselves whole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612941141
Publisher:	Bywater Books MI
Publication date:	02/19/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	318
File size:	788 KB

About the Author

A native of Los Angeles, Hilary Zaid is an alumna of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley and the Tin House Writer's Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in print and online in publications including Lilith, Southwest Review, Utne Reader, CALYX and The Santa Monica Review. Her short story "For Non-Speakers of the Mother Tongue" (Tahoma Literary Review, Winter 2017) has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and “The Dark Between the Stars” won the 2014 BLOOM Fiction Chapbook Prize. Hilary works as a freelance editor in Oakland, California, where she lives with her spouse, their two sons, and two terriers.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Hilary Zaid has written a beautiful, heartbreaking book about the stories that haunt us, about the ways silence can be wielded as a weapon and ultimately about how love between women can be redemptive.” —Nayomi Munaweera, author of the critically acclaimed novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors

“One young woman’s late-20th century search for marriage equality and the Holocaust play off each other in Paper is White, distinct and yet merging worlds, a dialogue of whispers.”—Jane Eaton Hamilton, queer activist and author of WeekendPaper is White is a wonderfully tender, inventive exploration of survival, secrets, memory, and love. Zaid’s characters are wholly original and riveting, and this story is funny, moving and necessary; you will love this book.” —Karen E. Bender, National Book Award finalist of Refund

“Paper Is White is a beautifully written and emotionally resonant novel, by a writer from whom we can expect to hear much more in the years ahead. Hilary Zaid is a name you’ll want to remember. Her book is one you’ll have a hard time putting down.”—Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World

“One young woman’s late-20th century search for marriage equality and the Holocaust play off each other in Paper is White, distinct and yet merging worlds, a dialogue of whispers.”—Jane Eaton Hamilton, queer activist and author of Weekend

“Paper is White is a funny, bright novel about the stories we think we need and the stories that turn out to matter more than we could have imagined.”—Ramona Ausubel, author of No One is Here Except All of Us and Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty

“Written across histories as seemingly varied as Lithuania’s Jewish Kovno Ghetto and Queer Nation San Francisco, Paper is White connects them in a very different sort of adventure novel, where remembering someone you love becomes one of the most radical things you can do. Zaid is fierce, a rebel with a cause, and her breathtaking leaps of imagination make new worlds possible.”—Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night

“Paper is White draws you in, word by word, sentence by sentence, until you’re so immersed in its world you can’t stop reading. Exploring the relationship between intimacy and truth-telling, as well as how past secrets complicate present-day commitments, this beautiful novel reveals generations of love.”—Lucy Jane Bledsoe, author of The Evolution of Love