This Magnificent Dappled Sea

 

Description

Two strangers—generations and oceans apart—have a chance to save each other in this moving and suspenseful novel about family secrets and the ineffable connections that attach us.

In a small Northern Italian village, nine-year-old Luca Taviano catches a stubborn cold and is subsequently diagnosed with leukemia. His only hope for survival is a bone marrow transplant. After an exhaustive search, a match turns up three thousand miles away in the form of a most unlikely donor: Joseph Neiman, a rabbi in Brooklyn, New York, who is suffering from a debilitating crisis of faith. As Luca’s young nurse, Nina Vocelli, risks her career and races against time to help save the spirited redheaded boy, she uncovers terrible secrets from World War II—secrets that reveal how a Catholic child could have Jewish genes.

Can inheritance be transcended by accidents of love? That is the question at the heart of This Magnificent Dappled Sea, a novel that challenges the idea of identity and celebrates the ties that bind us all together.

My Review

I love when I come across a book that just touches me in the heart strings. That is what author, David Biro did with this book. This book is very character driven. Which is a great thing that I fell in love with the characters so much. This was a fast read that I actually slowed down reading as I did not want it to be over so quickly. 

This book is spilt into sections, progressing in time as well as some flash backs. The first section centers on Luca. A young boy that has cancer. It is so bad that his only hope is a bone marrow transplant. There is just one problem...he needs a relative and Luca is an orphan. Yet, when the kind nurse caring for Luca feels a need to help, she opens old wounds and secrets. Rabbi Joseph is the other main character in this book. His story is just as interesting. 

David Biro graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia Medical School, and Oxford University. He teaches at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and practices dermatology in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. He is the author of One Hundred Days: My Journey from Doctor to Patient and The Language of Pain: Finding Words, Compassion, and Relief. He has also been published in the New York Times, Slate, The Philadelphia Inquirer,and various medical journals. David lives in New York City with his wife and twin boys. For more information, visit www.davidbiro.com.