Enemy in the garden

By Harriet Pike

Subjects: Hate crimes, Fiction, Antisemitism

Description: Nora Miller, a nominal Jew, fits right into her suburban town. She buys upscale food, chauffeurs her two children to sports’ teams, plays tennis and goes sailing with her church-going friends. Her perfectly ordinary life unravels one May morning when she discovers a swastika carved on her lawn. Enraged, Nora seeks clues to what prompted the hate crime. She disguises her identity and attends some meetings of the neighborhood neo-Nazis known as the American Clan. As a consequence, her husband disappears from a rally in the park and her idyllic world shatters. In her quest to find Harvey Miller, Nora faces official indifference and the betrayal of friends, all while coping with her traumatized teenage daughter and son.