Winner of the 2009 Canadian Jewish Book Award for Fiction

A family’s story of the Holocaust lies buried in the soil of a graveyard in Prague, in the old neighborhoods of Montréal, in the serenity of a small New Jersey town, and in the memory of Jana – a woman finally asked to bear witness

Far from the landscapes of her earlier life, Jana raised her daughter, Willow, on the beautiful scrapbooks she kept of her own childhood in Prague before World War II. But her stories end with the beginning of the Holocaust, and Willow knows little of her mother’s life during the war and its aftermath. Jana’s memories of this time are so guarded that Willow is uncertain who her father is – the answer left behind in Montréal, the city where Jana first settled after the war.

When both Willow and Jana find themselves back in Montréal, the past can no longer be hidden. New loves are found and lost loves rekindled, and mother and daughter decide to journey to Prague to unearth the stories that can no longer stay buried.

“The White Space Between beautifully evokes one family’s history and resilience, as it traces the mix of curiosity and self-protection that lead a mother and daughter into the past. The puppeteer heroine and her staunch and wry mother are wonderful, indelible characters, in a novel with a rare sunniness at its heart.”

-Joan Silber, American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award winner, National Book Award Finalist and author of The Size of the World