A Guide for the Perplexed

Horn's latest after The World To Come is part thriller and part philosophical rumination on family and memory. Josie and Judith Ashkenazi have a long history of sibling rivalry that has intensified over the seven years Judith has worked for her younger sister. Josie's company produces Genizah, a Facebook-like digital archive that catalogs life in real time via cell phones, computers, cameras, and other personal technology. While working in Egypt as a software consultant for the Library of Alexandria, Josie is kidnapped. As the family deals with the aftermath of the kidnapping, the narrative travels back in time to Solomon Schecter's expedition to Egypt to investigate the Cairo Genizah. This enormous and unsorted archive was filled with both religious and secular documents dating back as early as 870 CE. Both the real and fictional genizahs raise questions throughout the novel about how and why we choose what to remember or forget.