Debut Novel on sale now
“What if you get the chance to save one person in your lifetime. And what if you wasted it on yourself?”
It’s 1938 and a pogrom unlike any other sends Yitzhak Langlebben on a religious mission through the shtetls of Poland. Working with his great uncle, Yitzhak sets off on a journey that forces him to leave everyone he knows and loves behind.
It’s 2010 and Jake Langley finds himself left with the bleak task of cleaning out his recently deceased father’s house. As he sorts through the detritus of his father Ike’s life, Jake comes across a list of names and places, all written in Ike’s hand. Jake soon realizes what he has uncovered — remnants of a story his mother used to tell him when he was little.
Unbinding Isaac tells the tale of two young men: one discovering that the world he’s known is forever changing, the other seeking desperately to know the man who raised him – two experiences lived a lifetime apart, yet interconnected by the shared legacy of survival and loss.
A novel that understands the weight of choices we make to survive, Unbinding Isaac is about what it means to be a survivor – and about the generational scars that selfsame survival leaves in its wake.
UNBINDING ISAAC
A NOVEL
Available now
“A gentle and emotionally profound journey into the lasting impact of the Holocaust on families, told with a light touch and a deep understanding of the will to seek solace and understanding amidst the echoes of history.”
Naomi Lewis, Tiny Lights for Travellers and Cricket in a Fist
"With a beautiful, intimate and nuanced look at the Jewish diaspora, Unbinding Isaac takes us deep into communities that no longer exist but must never be forgotten. Through Jake’s journey to uncover his father’s past, we realize that so much of life is unspoken and untold, and we grieve, too, for all the stories that are lost when previous generations pass.”
Teresa Wong, Dear Scarlet
“Near the end of Abby Miller’s moving novel, Unbinding Isaac, one of its main characters defines diaspora as “A place where we must carry our history on our backs because there is nowhere to put it down.” As she compellingly tells the story of a Jewish family’s traumatic experiences during the Holocaust and afterward, Miller invites us all to reflect on the history that we all carry on our backs wherever we go – the power of memory, the perseverance of pain, the difficult work it takes to let our recall of the past transform our own lives in the present. High praise and gratitude to Abby Miller for sharing this stirring, timely, and timeless tale with us all.”
Rabbi Mark Glickman, Sacred Treasure: The Cairo Genizah and Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books
About Abby
This is Abby Miller’s first novel. She is currently working on a collection of short stories featuring female protagonists across the Canadian landscape, as well as her second novel, but first in the adult romance genre.
She lives in Calgary, Alberta with her husband and two children.