This Is How It Begins A Novel [Paperback]

One of 5 more over 50 writers to watchPoets & Writers magazine2018 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST2018 MAY SARTON WOMENS BOOK AWARD FINALISTWINNER, 2017 POETS & WRITERS MAUREEN EGEN WRITERS EXCHANGE AWARDBeautifully written & an ambitious and moving debut novel.LILY KING, award-winning national bestseller ofEuphoriaIn 2009, eighty-five-year-old art professor Ludka Zeilonka gets drawn into a political firestorm when her grandson, Tommy, is among a group of gay Massachusetts teachers fired for allegedly discriminating against Christian kids in high school classrooms. The ensuing battle to reinstate the teachers raises the specter of Ludka's World War II pasta past she's spent a lifetime trying to forget.The firings are the brainchild of Warren Meck, a deeply religious local radio host and father of three who is hoping to pass a religious freedom bill in Massachusetts. Meck favors achieving his goals through careful planning and legislation, and is disturbed when violence erupts. His concern quickly turns to alarm when he realizes those within his inner circle might be inciting the violence.As Ludka's esteemed political family defends Tommy under increasingly vicious conditions, a stranger with connections to Ludka's past shows up and threatens to expose her for illegally hoarding a valuable painting presumed stolen by the Nazis. Only one other person knew about the paintinga man she's been trying to find for sixty years.Compulsively readable,This Is How It Beginsis a timely novel about free speech, religious freedom, the importance of empathy and the bitter consequences of long-buried secrets.? According to a first-of-its-kind study from Michigan State University that ranks nations by empathy, the United States falls at No. 7, behind countries ranging from United Arab Emirates to Saudi Arabia and Korea. The study?s authors also previously found that American college students are 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 yearl“„