They didn’t want to tell me, but they wanted me to know.
I knew this from the way they kept the pictures hidden. My mother would look at them when she thought I was busy playing, but I was very much aware of what she was doing. When I’d come into the room, she would quickly put something back into a drawer, and when she went out, I would take the barely concealed pictures and study them.

The poignant voice of Naomi Lobl, well-loved writer and child of survivors, touches our hearts. With fine writing that is compelling and understated, we follow Naomi through her life’s experiences as she comes into her own, transcending the silences of her childhood and emerging as a proud and vibrant grandmother. Her life comes full circle when her own granddaughter asks her questions she had never dared to pose to her parents, and she finds that the great pain that had been percolating inside her all these years finally turns down to a simmer.

This rich collection includes original and imaginative tales that span generations. We are moved by their piercing truth as we join the author in her journey out of the darkness and into the light.

“Nothing I can think of saying about Naomi Lobl’s book can do it justice. I could go on and on about its unpretentious artistry with words, its entertaining, sly humor… about its humanity, and its authenticity, and its subtlety as literature… I needn’t bother. Out of the Darkness will speak for itself. But as a skeptical reader who’s always looking for ‘something real,’ I can tell you that the stories in these pages have kept me company during a few dark passages of my own, and restored my faith in the truth, that morning follows night.” —Sarah Shapiro, editor of the Our Lives series