Books & Biscotti (Book Review) with Cathy Tile
Thursday, September 4, 2025 • 11 Elul 5785
1:00 PM - 2:30 PMTemple Emanu-El or Online
by Lauren Francis-Sharma
and online via Zoom.
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Free for Temple Members | $15 for guests (online & pre-registration)
$20 cash-only for walk-ins at the door
Pre-registration is not available for walk-ins who wish to pay cash at the door.
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Casualties of Truth by Lauren Francis-Sharma
Prudence Wright seems to have it all: a loving husband, Davis; a spacious home in Washington, D.C.; and the former glories of a successful career at McKinsey, which now enables her to dedicate her days to her autistic son, Roland. When she and Davis head out for dinner with one of Davis’s new colleagues on a stormy summer evening filled with startling and unwelcome interruptions, Prudence has little reason to think that certain details of her history might arise sometime between cocktails and the appetizer course.
Yet when Davis’s colleague turns out to be Matshediso, a man from Prudence’s past, she is transported back to the formative months she spent as a law student in South Africa in 1996. As an intern at a Johannesburg law firm, Prudence attended sessions of the Truth and Reconciliation hearings that uncovered the many horrors and human rights abuses of the Apartheid state, and which fundamentally shaped her sense of righteousness and justice. Prudence experienced personal horrors in South Africa as well, long hidden and now at risk of coming to light. When Matshediso finally reveals the real reason behind his sudden reappearance, he will force Prudence to examine her most deeply held beliefs and to excavate inner reserves of resilience and strength.
Lauren Francis-Sharma’s previous two novels have established her as a deft chronicler of history and its intersections with flawed humans struggling to find peace in unjust circumstances. With keen insight and gripping tension, Casualties of Truth explosively mines questions of whether we are ever truly able to remove the stains of our past and how we may attempt to reconcile with unquestionable wrongs.
From Amazon.ca
For more information on the book and the author, please CLICK HERE to visit the publisher's website (Grove Atlantic).
Cathy Tile worked in the Toronto and York Region Boards of Education. She is one of the founders of the Living Lecture Series and is co-author of the book Toronto's Cook's Marketplace. Cathy has worked tirelessly for CAMH, UJA Youth Leadership and initiated the establishment of the Jewish Information Service and Tel Aide.
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