What is it like to have children? What, in particular, is it like to have an intelligent thoughtful eight-year-old child who asks insightful difficult questions about the hate-filled world he sees every day? What is it like too be an intelligent decent parent having to explain to this child why monsters sometime win? I am infinitely thankful to not know, that I’ll never know; but Mira Jacob made me feel just the smallest bit of what it must be like, and I cried much of the way through.

This is a beautiful work. Tender, considerate, vulnerable; painful but also warm and funny and moving. Even, dare I say, hopeful. (But shhh. Not out loud.)