Set in Canada’s Jewish diasporic community after World War II, a deeply mystical novel about truth and the things that we can’t know.
Chayim, a young Jewish man, arrives alone in Canada in the 1930s. Soon after the war, a man tells him how he survived the Holocaust by living in the forests in eastern Ukraine, and about a blessing he received in the forest – a moment of spiritual transmission. After this encounter, Chayim discovers that he has been given a terrible gift: the ability to see, literally written on people’s faces, the Hebrew names of their family members who were killed in the Holocaust.
Chayim confides in a new, unconventional rabbi, who asks him to meet with a young woman who has no information about her own family. Together they begin to meet with people who need to know about their family members’ fates — bringing answers and certainty, but at what cost? Written on the Skin of the Future is a haunting and beautiful novel about truth, mysticism, and the things we can’t know.