The Hill

/ Harriet Clark

An intimate, first-person chronicle of the unique forms of family enmeshment and estrangement wrought by incarceration, by an author whose mother served 37 years of a life sentence for political violence (the Brinks robbery in 1981). The novel draws on this real-life experience but isn’t straightforward autofiction. Though the reader follows the narrator through childhood and adolescence, the story has the enigmatic, existential mood of a fairy tale, punctuated with moments of wonderment as well as caustic humor. The prison on the hill exerts a mythic power that both enables and constrains the heartbreaking mother-daughter relationship at the center of the book.

To me, this one feels nostalgic, like part of a long, funny/sad tradition of Jewish storytelling that also found expression in some novels of the early aughts (like The History of Love by Nicole Krauss). It’s a sentimental tale of unsentimental Jewish elders, accustomed to suffering, who drop accidental pearls of wisdom while issuing stern life advice. Narrated by a smart young person who understands more than anyone knows.

—Nina Renata-Aron/ Reviewed Month 20xx

May 5, 2026 / Farrar, Straus and Giroux/ 
288 PAGES