Each day at sunrise, Efram recites the Mourner’s Kaddish, then reads an entry from Dad’s diary, at the table outside his cottage in the West German Evangelical Protestant Mission of Agbovey. Memories emerge of Efram’s loving bond with Dad, alongside his rebellion against Dad’s Jewish life.
The story is an awesome adventure. It takes the reader through African dance festivals; synagogue prayer services; racism and anti-Semitism in a Brooklyn pushcart market; friendship and distrust in cross-tribal Togolese relationships; a military coup; classroom discussion on the slave trade; and the Six Day War in Israel. Love between father and son drives the story.
In the Shoulder of Your Sail is taken from Hamlet—Polonius’ advice to his son, Laertes, who is about to set sail on a dangerous mission.
