fascinating, and the change in dynamic from duo to trio adds yet another intriguing dimension to the story as they continue on their perilous journey through the war zone.

Savit's novel, with its wise, philosophical narrator, has the classic feel and elegant, precise language of a book that's been around forever. Amidst a riveting survival story of brutal cold, hunger and chilling narrow escapes are musings on the power of words and the power of silence, the value of truth and the necessity of lies, the horrors of war, the resilience of people, love, death, the keen intuition of children, living with uncertainty. Alongside the purposeful detachment that comes with the storyteller's voice, though, is real, edge-of-seat suspense and powerful emotion. The details of Swallow Man's true identity--Is hethe Polish bogeyman Boruta? Is he really a magical being? Is he a "brilliant, beautiful deception?"--don't ultimately matter because, as the Swallow Man tells Anna, "questions are far more valuable than answers."

Anna and the Swallow Man
by
Gavriel Savit

Gavriel Savit: The Seed Spark of Swallow Man

photo: Arthur Cohen

Gavriel Savit is not only an author, he is a New York actor, fresh off of a Broadway production of Amazing Grace. Anna and the Swallow Man, his debut novel, is set in World War II Poland. As Savit says, his book, if it's "about" anything, is about "living in the space of not knowing." It's also about a girl named Anna Lania, whose father, a linguistics professor, is taken away by Germans when she is seven years old, leaving her on her