Hidden Nistar

The text comprises of two perplexing stories, “Hidden” and “Hanover Gardens.”  Featured in the first story, “Hidden,” is a young woman, Sarah, whose only source of solace and comfort is taken away when her parents die in a horrific war in Israel. She struggles with self-discovery and confidence in a warring world. The detrimental and atrocious ordeal she has to endure, including moving to a whole new country, meeting new people, new culture, and emotional distress, all seem to complicate her life incessantly. Read more

Author Casper has created two novellas in one volume, linked by sentiment and constructed in complex skeins of familial connections. The first one is set in Israel in the 1960s. A little girl is growing up in a caring but dysfunctional family environment. Tikvah lives with grandparents Baruch and Pnina Lazamof. Yet, the reader knows from the outset that Baruch will die by plunging down the stairs after visiting a closed room where a mysterious occupant, Hannah, needs meals delivered outside her door on the upper floor. Read more

There are two events in life that far too often go hand in hand, each elevating the other to a cascading series of pitfalls which we all have to endure and go through. Those two events are war and loss. For throughout human history, war has inevitably led to great loss, both for the nations that lost soldiers, and the families who lost loved ones. The last century especially has seen far too many families having to endure loss and pain in times of war, from the days of WWI and WWII to the more modern war on terror and beyond. Read more