Dan Goldman

Malka, the black sheep of her family, learns that her relatives are making a decades-in-the-planning pilgrimage to their grandfather’s pre-Holocaust home in Poland...and she wasn’t invited. After guilt-tripping herself a ticket as the self-appointed “Keeper of the Family Archives,” it becomes clear that everyone’s brought more baggage than just their suitcases.

Chasing Echoes

Mahogany Skillings

A slice of life story told through different points of view in the Bloom family. Everyone has sorrows and difficulties they are trying to face. At the same time, the family is working together to find their family home that was lost to them during the holocaust. There is humor, sadness, existential crises, joy, and love of family. Well done art takes you back and forth in time with ease, and keeps you interested in the story along with the words.

Gabriel Noel 

ARC given by NetGalley for Honest Review
[3.5 Stars]

Chasing Echoes by Dan Goldman follows Malka, a dysfunctional single parent and family archivist, who gets a last minute invitation on her family's trip to find a family mill from the past. Malka's family is ... unlikeable to say the least and they judge Malka for her shortcomings throughout the story. I find that this made me, as a reader, empathize with Malka as well as root for her honor throughout. Goldman does a good job of depicting true feelings of Jewish people seeing the sites of genocide. While you see tourists taking pictures/chatting excitedly instead you see Malka's family huddled together feeling hurt and somber. 

The art style is well drawn, and while it is not my preferred style I can see the artist really captured the essence of each character and brought life to intimate moments between the family. 

Something that DID lower my rating was the nonchalant look at mental illness. Malka is seen at the beginning to take pills for something like depression or anxiety, though it is never mentioned to my memory. She loses her luggage during the trip which has said medicine in it, and during this time she uses the excuse of not having her meds as a way to get away with saying inappropriate things. This can be written off as fairly humorous when it comes down to it, but the ending we see Malka finding her pills and deciding she doesn't need them because she feels happy. This bothered me slightly because mental illness does not work like that and the misuse of medication can be dangerous.

Overall I did enjoy the story and find that this will be a great piece of literature looking into the life of Jewish-American families in the modern age.

Chasing Echoes

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