A Tangled Tree: My Father's Path to Immortality - Softcover

Sezak-Blatt, Aiyanna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 099663942X ISBN 13: 9780996639422

Publisher: Logosophia, LLC, 2017

Synopsis

Literary Nonfiction. Jewish Studies. A TANGLED TREE: MY FATHER'S PATH TO IMMORTALITY begins in the summertime, as Aiyanna follows her father Moshe on their big adventures—living on a nude beach on Kauai, chasing the Grateful Dead in an old milk truck, offering prayers to the Wailing Wall, lighting candles in the Shabbas House in Massachusetts, which is always their base. Twelve years later and after years of distance, Moshe arrives at her door, barefoot, with a beard to his chest, a sage of Judah adorned in fine Indian silk. They have reunited with a shared vision: To record his life story and memoir. Born as a Polish Jew on the run from the Nazi invasion launching World War II, Moshe and his family barely escape the oncoming Holocaust. They find refuge on a kolhoz in Russia, return to Poland to encounter their deepest grief, move to a settlement in Israel, and eventually immigrate to Toronto. Despite his poverty and against the odds, Moshe becomes an academic, a Harvard professor, psychologist and rabbi. But by the age of 30, something inside him shifts, and he reaches for more. During the psychedelic intrigue of the '70s, he turns to a healer named Salvador, a man who gives him his first taste of LSD in a cathartic ritual. He travels to India, where a mystic named Osho introduces him to the love that heals. Across the world he seeks healing, traveling on an ever-morphing spiritual journey. Moshe fathers six children with five women. Aiyanna is his fourth, born out of wedlock to an astrologer with many names.

Moshe's epic personality, wisdom, stories, and memories suddenly collide into Aiyanna's life, filling her one- bedroom apartment, where they record together for a month, fighting, laughing, cooking dinners, ultimately rebuilding their lost relationship. When Moshe leaves, Aiyanna is left with a lifetime of pages to be written. But the book she writes is far from the reflection Moshe expected. Aiyanna's life experiences stand beside his; she writes of her siblings, their mothers, and the tangled nest of contention, love and disconnection between them all. From this portrayal, Moshe feels both betrayed and deeply wounded, confirmed that all women are only destined to hurt him. A TANGLED TREE is more than a memoir. It tells two conflicting but inseparable truths, painting a dynamic portrait of a man, of his parents' miraculous escape, of the six children he fathered, and of a daughter determined to tell their story, and carry it forward until the end.

About this title

About the Author

Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt grew up on the island of Kauai where she gorged on mangos, chased after imaginary unicorns and freckled beneath a hot tropical sun. As a young woman, she traveled to Massachusetts to attend the Cambridge School of Weston for high school, and landed in New York to study at Sarah Lawrence College, where she received a BA in creative writing. This is her first book. She now devotes herself to writing amongst the rolling purple mountains of Western North Carolina where she lives and works in Asheville. She writes for several local publications; is a student of permaculture design and gardening; a maker of herbal elixirs and meads, a tarot card reader, a constant and sensitive seeker, and grateful to be on this beautiful and mysterious journey called life.

Review

"In beautifully clear-eyed prose, Aiyanna Sezak-Blatt plumbs the complexities of her bond with a brilliant, unsettled father. Their story leaps across continents and generations to map a branching history of pain, betrayal, and devotion. Moshe Blatt is a hypnotic character-wolf and wise man, adorable and infuriating-but his daughter's quest to understand her heritage is just as mesmerizing." -Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks, The Listeners, and Farewell Navigator "A Tangled Tree is a powerful and emotional journey exploring Sezak-Blatt's relationship with her eccentric, adventurous, and often-absent father. Unflinchingly candid and beautifully written, A Tangled Tree offers no easy answers. Instead, it tests the frayed, raveled, and enduring bonds between daughter and dad. It's a thought-provoking, touching quest to heal and rebuild from the rubble." -Will Harlan, author of Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America "A moving portrait of a remarkable man and a remarkable father-daughter relationship. Every page is lit with warmth, compassion, and moral grace." -Brain Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening and Florence Gordon

Edition details

• Publisher: Logosophia, LLC
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 099663942X
• ISBN 13: 9780996639422
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 408