The Gates of November

"REMARKABLE . . . A WONDERFUL STORY."
–The Boston Globe

The father is a high-ranking Communist officer, a Jew who survived Stalin’s purges. The son is a "refusenik," who risked his life and happiness to protest everything his father held dear. Now, Chaim Potok, beloved author of the award-winning novels The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev, unfolds the gripping true story of a father, a son, and a conflict that spans Soviet history. Drawing on taped interviews and his harrowing visits to Russia, Potok traces the public and privates lives of the Slepak family: Their passions and ideologies, their struggles to reconcile their identities as Russians and as Jews, their willingness to fight–and die–for diametrically opposed political beliefs.

"[A] vivid account . . . [Potok] brings a novelist’s passion and eye for detail to a gripping story that possesses many of the elements of fiction–except that it’s all too true."
–San Francisco Chronicle