What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?: A Memoir - Softcover

David Harris-Gershon is a popular online columnist for Tikkun magazine, the Jersualem Post, and Daily Kos. He received his MFA from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and his essays, creative writing, and poetry have been published in Colorado Review, Passages North, Burnside Review, Pebble Lake Review, and many others.

A harrowing experience becomes a potent lesson for personal growth [Harris-Gershon’s] honesty and humility give the memoir historical context, and ultimately elevate his story from the individual to the universal.” Time Out New York

"Fierce... A tale of redemption and new beginnings and of truly embracing the other. Harris-Gershon’s story is not really about Middle East politics so much as it is a story of healing a debate about whether South African style reconciliation and restorative dialogue can really bring about closure after an event of unspeakable pain and violence." Slate

"Brave and impressive." Guardian

"It is a story about how a great personal trauma can lead to a journey that upends long-held beliefs and ideas. The terrific thing about this book is that the author manages to tell his story without sentimentality, grandiose pronouncements, or false humility. He pulls the reader in with his unpretentious, laconic style, and with his refusal to shy away from acknowledging his own flaws." Daily Beast

"This enormously compelling title smashes preconceived notions while delivering an unforgettable and provocative story about the roots of terrorism and the nature of victimhood... Bracing, intense, and relentless, this is a book about how we as humans get to the darkest of places and the questions we must ask to find our way out. A transformative reading experience." Booklist, starred review

"An arduous, brave, messy, raw, emotional journey." Kirkus Reviews

"Harris-Gershon's prose and storytelling abilities are matched only by his deep and moving compassion and humanity, all of which spillout on every page of this amazing book." Tim Wise, author of White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son

"This book is an act of forgiveness. It does what all great non-fiction does, which is to look with ruthless honesty at that which is most beautiful and terrible within all of us - friend, enemy, lover, stranger. A beautifully written, brave and compassionate book." Sarah Messer, author of Red House

"An immensely compelling and intelligent memoir that leads the reader through anger and confusion towards reconciliation and hope." Richard Zimler, author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and The Warsaw Anagrams