A Bend in the Stars

Such a beautifully written novel.  Rachel Barenbaum has created a version of the world in Russia at the time of the eclipse  that is completely believable.  So many times while reading the book, I paused to double check a name or even the cover of the book to remind myself that it was all fiction and not really based on a real person of history.

This is a story of a young Russian Jew, who was working on the theory of relativity at the same that Einstein is developing his theory and Russia is on the brink of war.  Vanya and Miri are two Jewish siblings living with their grandmother after the death of their parents in an accident.  Their grandmother who escaped from Russian pogroms against Jews has brought these siblings up to watch their back and be wary at all times.  Now with the the start of the war in 1914, they are again up against prejudice and are hoping to escape to America. 

Vanya is studying the science of relativity at the University and realizes that he is close to beating Einstein if he can only get to see the eclipse first hand and have a photograph of the event.  With this information he has been invited to bring his family to Harvard to teach.  

Miri is also an exceptional student.  She has been given the education to become a doctor, something extremely unheard of in Russia in 1914.  When she realizes her brother's fate is in jeopardy as he travels to see the eclipse, she follows him to warn him.  

Vanya travels with Miri's fiancé and together they fight their way across the country.  Miri sets out to follow them with a wounded Jewish soldier to has escaped his unit.  There is intrigue as they defy the odds against soldiers and others willing to sell out a Jew for money.  There is romance and the race against the clock and time.  

While reading this terrific story you also learn about the science of the time, relativity and the bending of light and the science of time.  Telling time, clocks and how time is set.  Today we look at a clock and know that all across the world we are looking at the same time.  But then time could be off by minutes from place to place, country to country.