A fearless yet reverent story of a young Hebrew scribe's promises to his late grandparents, who had escaped the Holocaust.
"A vacation for the mind and soul."In 2004, when world-traveling Wes Levine arrives in New Zealand by way of Bangkok, he forms two life changing relationships. First, Wes meets Harry, a gay British heir with ties to a progressive Dutch synagogue that needs a new Torah scroll. Then, along comes mysterious and free-spirited Kayla, who offers Wes room in an Amsterdam canal house she shares with an eccentric painter.
With Harry as a sponsor, Wes scribes a Torah to commemorate his grandparents, doing so in the same city they'd fled during World War II. After work, Wes navigates Amsterdam's alluring Red Light District, where sex sells and anything goes. When Wes and Kayla fall in love, they also fall on the radar of a ruthless sex trafficker with a score to settle.
An ambitious first novel, The Year of the Tsunami is about how far someone is willing to go in order to keep a promise, even in the face of devastating consequences.
The author, Derrick Credito, is a 2024 winner of a prestigious literary accolade: the London-based Reader's House Magazine's Editor's Choice Award.