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Eva Hoffman was born in Krakow, Poland, and immigrated to America at the age of thirteen. The recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Award and an award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and letters, she currently lives in London
This is Hoffman's first novel and it tackles some difficult issues with the same lively intelligence that characterises her non-fiction works, Lost in Translation and Shtetl. Set in America, mostly in the not-too-distant future, it centres around the growing realisation of young Iris of a mystery surrounding her birth, a secret the knowledge of which will change her life forever. It will explain why she and her mother are abandoned by the adoring and adorable Steven; why people look at them oddly in the street; why her mother Elizabeth is estranged from the rest of her family... Through the course of the novel Iris makes a lonely and painful journey to understand her origins and what motivates her, and while her particular situation is extraordinary, she is forced to confront some universal issues including the desire for love, the meaning of family, the role of science in our lives and the very nature of identity itself. It may not take very long for the reader to guess the secret at the core of this novel, but the pleasure is all in Hoffman's sensitive handling of it, the convincing characterisations, the provocative issues raised. This is an unusual, moving and startling debut from a writer to watch. (Kirkus UK)
