To & Fro

Like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” tale, this novel by Cohen (Strangers and Cousins) invites readers to begin in one of two directions. Choose “To” and accompany Ani on her journey in search of “the Captain,” the man in whose home she found refuge after losing her parents. Setting out on a stolen bicycle with some meager provisions and a tiny kitten, Ani intends to reunite the Captain with his journal and his reading glasses. Along the way, she encounters setbacks as well as assistance from kind strangers, helping her make sense of her early memories. Choose “Fro” and join Annamae Galinsky as she searches for her place in the world. With the help of her mother, a linguistics professor, and a patient rabbi, she begins to understand herself. There are many points of intersection between the two stories: Each has a treasured journal, both suffer from a deep loneliness, and both seek a ferryman to help them reach a longed-for destination.