From the author of Blonde The Falls and We Were the Mulvaneys this new novel takes in the themes of race immigration family and social mobility and is Joyce Carol Oates at her storytelling best The Gravediggers Daughter tells the tale of Rebecca Schwart born in the late s to an immigrant family from Nazi Germany just as they are arriving to America The family settles in a small bleak town in upstate New York where the only job the father can get is as the town gravedigger and caretaker of the cemetery Soon the towns prejudice and the familys own emotional frailty results in unspeakable tragedy In the wake of this loss and in an attempt to put her past behind her young Rebecca Schwart moves on across America and through a series of listless marriages in search of somewhere and someone to whom she can belong.
