AYESHA F. HAMID

Whether natural or man-made, disasters and calamities create chaos and confusion.  After experiencing or witnessing such disasters, the human response is to question how such events could take place. Those that once believed in an omnipotent God can come to believe that we live in a universe devoid of God or one in which God does not care about humanity. The Holocaust was just such an event where the mass murder of millions was done with cold calculation, efficiency, and automation.  Richard D. Bank’s novel, Feig, explores the lives of characters who were irrevocably changed by the Holocaust, either by experiencing it first hand or by growing up in homes where survivors: kept secrets, broke down privately, and shielded others from the horrors that they had experienced.

In the beginning of this novel, Philadelphia attorney David Gold meets Jacob Feig, a Holocaust Survivor, and a short time after their first meeting, Feig is accused of his wife’s murder.  David decides to defend Feig, and when he is forced to learn about Feig’s past, he has no choice but to face his own.  For David, learning more about Feig will change his life in profound ways, altering the way he sees the past and the way he lives his future.

Bank seamlessly weaves the stories of David Gold, his family’s past, and the life and trial of Jacob Feig into one novel, so that the reader experiences the interplay of three independent and compelling narratives. Reading Feig, one becomes thoroughly engrossed, so that every recollection, movement, or action becomes consequential, and through this story, the reader comes to remember the true meaning of friendship. The friendships, which form in the story, are not friendships of convenience or exigency.  Rather, they are bonds that show the existence of something more profound, perhaps the existence of the human soul, which stirs even in the middle of madness.

This novel enlightens, reminding the reader that even in the midst of the worst tragedies, humanity can transcend, finding in others the strength that is needed to go on.  It is a story which poignantly explores the bonds of family and friendship.  Feig is revelatory, showing the reader:  that everything is connected, that we belong to a larger family, and that sometimes friends can take monumental roles in our lives, placing them squarely within our family, the human family.