Fugitive dad lovingly buried by his children in his bookshelves – A True Story

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Award-winning memoir IN HERSCHEL’S WAKE, is being released on audiobook. Additionally, in a LIVE EVENT BOOK READING (Wed Jan 11th7pm) at Book Soup in West Hollywood, CA, author Michael Wohl will be interviewed by acclaimed TV writer Ethan Sandler.

IN HERSCHEL’S WAKE is a darkly funny tale of faith, funerals, and fucked-up fathers, but most timely, it’s about learning how to overcome division and find forgiveness. The book has been awarded the 2022 International Impact Book Award, the American Writing Award for Memoir, and the Firebird Book Award. It’s also currently on the long-list for the CIBA award in 2023.

 

The book details the author’s adventure to an obscure, obstacle laden island when his hippie, fugitive father died unexpectedly in 2008. With no modern funerary services available on the tiny island, Michael and his estranged siblings were left to bury their enigmatic patriarch by themselves, and by hand.

As they scrounged for wood to build a coffin, struggled to dig an appropriate hole, and attempted to clean the corpse according to Jewish rituals (per their atheist father’s dying wishes), they were forced to confront their complicated relationships, not only with their charismatic but irresponsible father, but also — and perhaps more importantly—with each other.

REQUEST A REVIEW COPY OR SCHEDULE AN AUTHOR INTERVIEW TODAY!

“WONDERFUL, ENTERTAINING & HIGHLY READABLE! It manages to encompass and make some sense of so many common and complex feelings about family—of the best ways to live, to die, to belong, to commune, to mourn, and to celebrate.”  – Meaghan RadyEmmy® Award-winning producer/showrunner, Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart

 A tender, clever, and engrossing remembrance.” Kirkus Reviews

Herschel Wohl was a spectacularly difficult father—a pedantic, dreamy, feckless smoker of all that was smokeable. [So] it was totally in character that while he shunned all religion, before dying on a tiny, hard-to-reach Caribbean Island, his last wish was for a traditional Jewish burial. Part adventure story, and part reckoning, In Herschel’s Wake is ENGAGING, POIGNANT, and a THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE READ.”  Jane BernsteinAward-winning author of The Face Tells the Secret

Michael Wohl is an award-winning filmmaker; author of more than a dozen nonfiction books about filmmaking; and founder of the enigmatic culinary curation club Bread Heals, which seeks to break the boundaries that divide us through the shared joy of breaking bread.

Web: InHerschelsWake.com • Instagram: #michaelwohlauthor  • Twitter: @mwohlauthor  • Medium: @maxwhirl • YouTube: @michaelwohlauthor