The Weight of Memory

"Smucker crafts beautiful sentences and haunting characters that immerse readers in a world where anything is possible but not everything is real. Recommended for fans of Ted Dekker or Tosca Lee."--Library Journal *** When Paul Elias receives a terminal diagnosis he leaves his physician's office in a fog. Only one thing is clear to him: if he is going to die he must find someone to watch over his granddaughter Pearl who has been in his charge since her drug-addicted father disappeared. Paul decides to take her back to Nysa--both the place where he grew up and the place where he lost his beloved wife under strange circumstances forty years earlier. But when he picks up Pearl from school the little girl already seems to know of his plans claiming a woman told her. In Nysa Paul reconnects with an old friend but is not prepared for the onslaught of memory. And when Pearl starts vanishing at night and returning with increasingly bizarre tales Paul begins to question her sanity his own views on death and the nature of reality itself. In this suspenseful and introspective story from award-winning author Shawn Smucker the past and the present mingle like opposing breezes teasing out the truth about life death and sacrifice. "A resonant allegory about forgiveness and faith. Fans of James Rubart will want to take a look."--Publishers Weekly