Heat

Toby Lloyd's novel "Heat" is an engaging, masterfully written story about how family traumas, especially unresolved ones, tend to reproduce themselves in future generations, creating an existential void in the souls of descendants. A few years ago, we would have said that the story of a Jew who survived the Holocaust, his children and grandchildren, has a rather historical-instructive character, but after October 7, 2023, after the surge of anti-Semitism that has swept through even allegedly progressive university campuses in America and Europe, it becomes clear: this novel is not just about what was—it is about what is happening now.