In Conversation: On Three Sisters: A Novel & Send for Me: A Novel

Heather Morris wrote the international bestsellers The Tattooist of Auschwitz: A Novel – which is based on years of interviews Morris conducted with real-life Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov – and its sequel, Cilka’s Journey. Inspired by true events, Three Sisters: A Novel (St. Martin’s Press), tells the story of Livia, Magda, and Cibi, three Slovakian sisters that survived years of imprisonment in the most notorious death camp in Nazi Germany: Auschwitz. Having promised their father as children that they would stay together, no matter what, the sisters clung together as they nearly died from starvation, overwork, and the brutal whims of the guards in this place of horror. But now, allies are closing in, and as the Nazis try to erase any evidence of the prisoners held there, the three sisters are able to escape and hide in the woods for days before being rescued. And this is where the story begins. To find true peace and happiness, they must face the ghosts of their past – and the secrets they have kept from each other.

Lauren Fox is the author of Days of Awe: A Novel, Still Life with Husband: A Novel, and Friends Like Us: A Novel. Her work has also appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Psychology Today, and Salon. Send for Me: A Novel (Vintage), which Fox based on letters from her own family, is a work of historical fiction that moves between Germany on the eve of World War II and present-day Wisconsin. Annelise works at her parents’ bakery in Feldenheim, Germany. Anti-Jewish sentiment is rising, but she and her parents can’t believe that it will affect them. Annelise marries and gives birth to her daughter as threats to Jews become more dangerous. She and her family set off for America, but they must leave behind her parents, whose future and safety are uncertain. Two generations later, in a small Midwestern city, Annelise’s granddaughter, Clare, stumbles upon her grandmother’s letters from Germany. The history of her family’s sacrifices is placed in a new light, and suddenly she faces an impossible choice: the past or her future. Kirkus praised it as “subtle, striking, and punctuated by snippets of family letters. Fox has imbued this deeply personal, ultimately hopeful novel … with emotion, empathy, and an essential understanding of … the importance of reckoning with the past in order to embrace the future.”

Rebecca Friedman is an associate professor of history and the founding director of the Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab at Florida International University. Her focus is the history and culture of modern Russia, exploring issues such as domestic life, masculinity, and childhood.