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Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite
It's 1952 and the first setting for this story of an eccentric family and its assorted members is Pasadena, California, where the two oldest brothers have bought a home for their mother, sister and nephew. The nephew is Danny who is fourteen years old, a totally creative genius who writes songs and wins contests but who is also struggling with cystic fibrosis. Danny's grandmother, Esther, and her late beloved husband, Benjamin, escaped Russia of long ago and live in a small basement Chicago apartment where they begin their family. Their oldest sons, Nathan and Samuel, are successful businessmen. Their youngest son David has married a non-Jew, Irish Kathleen, and they have sired Jessmyn and Melisaa whose company Danny adores. Esther's daughter Leah died tragically just after her marriage and her remaining daughter Dean, Danny's mother, is her own person and is at the moment in an affair with a former rabbi. Rabbi Saltzman, Dena's current fascination, calls together west coast healers to cure Danny of his cystic fibrosis but doesn't realize that one of those healers is Danny's true father. But can Danny really be healed?
"The Candle of God" is a brilliant piece of literature that celebrates the life of the author's cousin who died of cystic fibrosis years ago. Poems of the grandmother, Esther, and her two daughters, Leah and Dena, begin this remarkable tale and it ends with Jessmyn's poem of her own attempts to save her cousin's life. All the characters, Dena, Esther, Danny, his uncle David and his daughter Jessmyn, Melissa, Earl, Clyde who is Danny's real father, and all the others are unique and colorful, and play strong roles in this story of attempted healing. "Candle of God" is not an everyday novel. It is brilliant and deserves to be nominated for the Pushcart Awards.
