Irena Bozinska, beset by difficulties with love, language, and change, is a mathematician who has recently emigrated from Poland to America. She works as an attendant for an aging jazz musician who longs for one last moment of musical glory in spite of his arthritic fingers. Jack Kaufman (“one of the more compelling characters of recent fiction” —Kirkus), cared for by a mysteriously sad young woman, is a Chicago gangster nearing the end of a colorful, violent life. Joined together by the simple circumstance of sharing the same apartment building, these four lonely people begin to form surprising, life-changing bonds with one another.
Drawn with Maxine Chernoff’s critically acclaimed wit and lyricism, American Heaven, from Chicago to Warsaw, at the beginning of life’s journey or nearing its end, is a potent, unforgettable story of hope, forgiveness, and the ultimate power—tenuous though it may be—of human connections.
