No One is Here Except All of Us

Book excerpt: A village tries to save itself through the sheer force of imagination - all because of an eleven-year-old-girl. In 1939, the residents of the tiny Romanian village of Zalischik are counting on their isolation to protect them from the catastrophe sweeping Europe. When a mysterious stranger is washed up on the riverbank and the illusion of peace is shattered, the villagers are forced to acknowledge the precariousness of their situation. At the suggestion of an eleven-year-old girl and the washed up stranger, the villagers decide to start the world over, and begin again from scratch. But the real world continues to unfold alongside the imagined one, and soon our narrator - the girl, grown into a young mother - must move from one world to the next. In rich, luminous prose, Ramona Ausubel has created a story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history. No One Is Here Except All Of Usexplores how we use storytelling to survive and to shape our own truths. 'Fantastical and ambitious . . . infused with faith in the power of storytelling.' New York Times 'Contains so many achingly beautiful passages, it's as if language itself is continually striving to be a refuge . . . Infinitely tender and soulful, magical and true.' San Francisco Chronicle