The Spiral Shell

"The Spiral Shell is an evocative, probing, heartfelt memoir, as rich in character and detail as the best fiction.  There are all kinds of reckonings here: personal, historical, spiritual. There is a vivid present as well as a vividly imagined past, a voice that is at turns charming, grieving, outraged and wry.  Sandell Morse illuminates with wisdom and grace Eli Wiesel's timeless injunction that, "For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."   —ALICE McDERMOTT, Author of Charming Billy and The Bigamist's Daughter

"The Spiral Shell depicts two vivid journeys, one inward, as Sandell Morse explores her own identity as a Jew and one outward, as she pieces together the history of French Jews under the Vichy government.  Each journey is fraught with reversals, full of unexpected details and betrayals at many levels.  Secrecy, Morse discovers, is still rife around the deportation of French Jews. This is a necessary, illuminating and beautifully intelligent memoir." —MARGOT LIVESEY, Author of Mercury and The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing