Join your fellow congregants for an intimate book club discussion of Our Narrow Hiding Places, conducted by the author himself, Kristopher Jansma. 

Our Narrow Hiding Places follows an elderly woman as she recounts her Dutch family’s survival during the final years of Nazi occupation, shedding new light on old secrets that rippled through subsequent generations. A sweeping story of survival and of the terrible cost of war--and a reminder that sometimes the traumas we inherit come along with a resilience we never imagined.

To prepare for the book club discussion, you may purchase your book at your favorite local bookseller or via Amazon. It is also available as an eBook or audiobook to be enjoyed on your choice of device. 

This 75th anniversary event is a benefit of your temple membership and is free to attend but requires a registration to assist TBE in preparing for your arrival.  Please fill out the form below to register. On the evening of January 16, adults will need to present their Digital ID to enter the building.  

About the Author

Kristopher is the author of the critically acclaimed novels, Our Narrow Hiding Places (Ecco/2024) Why We Came to the City (Viking/2016) and The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards (Viking/2013). His book of essays on the creative process is Revisionaries: What We Can Learn From the Lost, Unfinished, and Just Plain Bad Work of Great Writers (Quirk, 2024). He is the winner of the 2014 Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award and his story “The Samples” is the winner of a 2021 Pushcart Prize. The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards was an Honorable Mention for the PEN/Hemingway Prize and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Award for Excellence in Fiction and the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. His work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Korean, and Russian. His writing has also been published in The New York Times, ZYZZYVA Magazine, The Sun, Prairie Schooner, Chicago Quarterly Review, Slice Magazine, Salon, Real Simple, The Millions, and elsewhere. He is an Associate Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at SUNY New Paltz College. He lives in Millwood, New York with his wife and two children.