Did Events in Gaza Just Rewrite My Historical Novel?

“I feel terrible about what I’m about to say to you,” the woman in the audience told me. “But I have to be honest.”

That’s rarely the start of a conversation that ends well, whether it’s a first date or a book talk. But it was a Jewish Cultural Center event and I was an invited guest speaker. The subject was my historical novel, Picture in the Sand, in which the protagonist is a young Egyptian movie fan who gets drawn into a terror plot involving the Muslim Brotherhood and political violence.

“I would have read your book in one way before October 7,” the woman said in a measured tone. “But it was hard for me to read it now. Because you’re asking me to feel compassion for someone I do not wish to feel any compassion for.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.