KisstheRedStairs Format: Paperback

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

For readers of All Things Consoled by Elizabeth Hay and They Left Us Everything by Plum Johnson, Kiss the Red Stairs is a compelling memoir by award-winning journalist Marsha Lederman delves into her parents’ Holocaust stories in the wake of her own divorce, investigating how trauma migrates through generations with empathy, humour, and resilience.

With compelling Holocaust stories, deep research into trauma theory, and a powerful personal narrative about family and motherhood, the book brings together subjects readers are fascinated by with humour, empathy and raw emotion.

Marsha was five when a simple question led to a horrifying answer. Sitting in her kitchen, she asked her mother why she didn’t have any grandparents. Her mother told her the truth: the Holocaust.

Decades later, her parents dead and herself a mother to a young son, Marsha begins to wonder how much history has shaped her own life. Reeling in the wake of a divorce, she craves her parents’ help. But in their absence, she is gripped by a need to understand the trauma they suffered, and she begins her own journey into the past to tell her family’s stories of loss and resilience.

Kiss the Red Stairs is a compelling memoir of Holocaust survival, intergenerational trauma, divorce, and discovery that will guide readers through several lifetimes of monumental change.

MARSHA LEDERMAN is a columnist for the Globe and Mail and was previously the Globe’s longtime Western Arts Correspondent. Before joining the Globe, Marsha worked for CBC Radio, mostly in Toronto. Born in Toronto, she now lives in Vancouver. Her first book, Kiss the Red Stairs: The Holocaust, Once Removed was a National Bestseller, a Hill Times Best Book of 2022 and a Quill and Quire 2022 Book of the Year. It also won the Cindy Roadburg Memorial Prize at the Western Canada Jewish Book Awards in 2023. She has earned many awards for her writing, including, most recently, the 2024 Max Wyman Award for Critical Writing.