Ziggurat takes place in a time of innovation and change within people and within communities. "What is trying to happen here?" is the book's underlying question, a question to which we can all relate as we stand at the start of a new millennium.
In his classic novel, Joseph and His Brothers, Thomas Mann says, Deep is the well of the past." When the sons of Jacob reconsidered and drew their brother out of the well into the light of his uncertain future, he emerged midway between the Euphrates and the Nile. These two rivers of creativity became our Western CIvilization. Joseph was soon to draw his people into that other vortex of new and recorded ideas, the land of Egypt, far from the city of Ur, birthplace of his grandfathers.
This novel reaches nine generations deeper into the well of Joseph's past to follow the ambition and soul searching of Gart-eber-Sin, a young immigrant in the city of Ur. Is also examines his relationship with Kre-eg-el-Sheh, a man of similar age but of markedly different background and personality. The dynamics of urban life and regional affairs draw this unlikely pair together as their personal aspirations are transformed and melded into the destiny of their people and ours.
