“Jennifer Steil is a conjurer of spells and a resurrector of lives past. In Exile Music she brings to life a little-known chapter of a war that came to define us, & which we're still grappling with today. This beautiful book is at once timeless and topical. A great novel.”—Daniel Torday, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for The Last Flight of Poxl West
“In a sea of Holocaust literature, “Exile Music” stands out as wholly original and engaging.”—Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle
“Gorgeous and lyrical, Exile Music captures the delicate rhythm of one girl’s coming of age while driven by war and exile. Heart-wrenching, tender and powerful.” — Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee
"This is one of the best novels I have read in a long time.”—The Jerusalem Post
“Beautifully narrated…From the very first pages I was swept up.”
—Georgia Hunter, New York Times bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones
"One of the best historical novels I have ever read about this period of time." —Zibby Owens, award-winning podcast host of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books
“A beautiful coming-of-age tale… Moving, evocative, and well-researched, this is sure to linger in readers’ minds long after the last page has been turned.” —Booklist (starred)
“Out of this this little-known corner of history, Steil offers a beautiful meditation on the things we all hold dear – family, friendship, home. My Beautiful Friend meets The Pianist in this elegant symphony of a novel.”
—Ruth Gilligan, author of Nine Folds Makes a Paper Swan
“Jennifer Steil has created a world that is as fierce and stunning as her exquisite language. She dares ask the question where do we belong – and forces the reader to question our own conceptions of what makes a home. Ultimately, this is a story of a woman searching for herself following unimaginable trauma.”
—Elizabeth L. Silver, author of The Execution of Noa P. Singleton
“Vienna, Austria and La Paz, Bolivia; war and peace; immediate love and mingled yearning; tangled desires sprung from single seeds—Exile Music is a magnificent exercise in connections among objects, ideas, and places that seem to have nothing in common, but do.”
—Beth Kephart, author of Strike the Empty and This is the Story of You
“Here is a coming-of-age book for anyone who has ever felt their world shift on its axis, from light to dark, from comfort to abject terror, from sonorous to sheer noise–for anyone who has ever had to run. A lyric and heartrending adventure.”
—Elizabeth Cohen, author of The Family on Beartown Road
“This riveting, elegantly rendered coming-of-age story sheds light on the community of Jewish refugees who found sanctuary in La Paz, Bolivia. With vivid historical details and unforgettable characters, Exile Music captures the heartbreak of exile, the painful scars of survival, and the redemptive power of art.”
—Amy Gottlieb, author of The Beautiful Possible
“A celebration of the redemptive power of love, art and music in the face of the cataclysms of history, this novel weaves a powerful spell. I fell in love with Orly, a keeper of secrets and stories, who holds her family together by force of will when it seems certain they will fray apart. In prose of vivid beauty and lyrical toughness, Steil illuminates the life of the émigré with moments of unexpected kindness, tension, tragedy and triumph.”
—Ariel Kahn, author of Raising Sparks
“Exile Music transcends genres. From Latin American literature to Holocaust literature to Jewish literature to lesbian literature, Exile Music could easily be shelved in many different places in a bookstore or library. Steil’s thorough research provides a solid foundation that allows this story to be told with a great deal of heart, and that is to be admired.”
—ReVista, Harvard Review of Latin America
“How can you recover from devastating loss of loved ones and of everything from your past life? How can you rebuild your life in an unfamiliar culture? How can you move on from a traumatic past? These are questions Steil ponders through her vivid protagonist in this enthralling and brilliantly written novel.”—ReformJudaism.org
“Based on a little-explored part of World War II, the novel follows young Orly’s journey to womanhood, a journey shaped by her family’s exile, their connection to music, and the very different ways each of them adapts. It is a fresh and unique take on both the coming-of-age novel and the WWII novel, immersing the reader not only in mid-twentieth century Bolivia, but also in the world of opera and music.”—The Rumpus
“Exile Music is a book you’ll be tempted to read quickly to see how it all turns out, but if you do, you may find yourself regretting that there aren’t even more pages to read.”—San Diego Jewish World
“Steil delivers on the promise of the title, writing prose that is frequently lyrical and occasionally elegiac. Her novel, a Holocaust story that promises a new sort of plot and delivers it, masks its length with this sort of writing; it’s as if Steil is writing herself into a lather, and you’re along with her. Suddenly, it’s been 400 pages and you didn’t even realize it. (It helps to have an engrossing plot, too.)”—Jewish Exponent
“This novel documents a largely unknown chapter in the history of the Jewish diaspora. Through the character of Orly, Steil gives us a wondrous evocation of the openness of childhood, a heroine who perceives beauty and wisdom where her elders see only strangeness. While clear-eyed to the horrors of colonial exploitation, Orly delights in her new world, and her appreciation allows her to come to terms with banishment in this faraway sphere. As she grows into a writer, we come to care deeply for her as a person who is able to transform exile into an adventure, and an unfamiliar sphere into a place to call home.” —Historical Novel Society
“Steil, a journalist and a novelist who spent several years living in La Paz, has created a vivid and welcome portrait of a world that rarely has been captured in Jewish literature.”—The Jewish News of Northern California