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In this spellbinding book, a young man journeys from California to Cairo to unravel centuries-old family secrets. Joseph, a literature university student at Berkeley, is the child of any Jewish mom and woman father. 1 day, a mysterious program occurs on his doorstep, pulling him into a mesmerizing adventure to uncover the tangled record that binds the two sides of his family. For years, the men of the al-Raqb family have dished up as watchmen of the storied Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, built at the site where the newborn Moses was extracted from the Nile. Joseph discovers of his ancestor Ali, woman orphan who nearly 1,000 years before was entrusted as the first watchman of the synagogue and became enchanted by its famous - perhaps enchanting - Ezra Scroll. The story of Joseph's family is entwined with that of the English twin sisters Agnes and Margaret, who in 1897 depart their hallowed Cambridge halls on a mission to rescue sacred texts which have begun to go away from the synagogue. The Previous Watchman of Old Cairo is a moving book from acclaimed storyteller Michael David Lukas. This securely woven multi-generational story illuminates the tensions which have torn communities aside and the unlikely forces - effective magic, forbidden love - that boldly try to bridge that divide. Advance compliment for The Previous Watchman of Old Cairo: "A beautiful, richly textured book, ambitious and delicately built, The Previous Watchman of Old Cairo is both a coming-of-age story and a family record, a wide-ranging booklet about fathers and sons, faith, magic, love, and the substance of storytelling. This booklet is a pleasure." (Rabih Alameddine, author of the National Booklet Honor finalist An Unnecessary Woman) "Michael David Lukas has given us an elegiac book of Cairo - Old Cairo and modern Cairo - with somewhat of Berkeley tossed in. His prose is deeply evocative, and a sense of mystery and serious tristesse pervade this different narrative, which explains to the storyplot of a young California man on a quest to comprehend a puzzling gift idea kept for him by his overdue daddy, the descendant of years of watchmen at the venerable Ben Ezra synagogue in the depths of Old Cairo. The book is increased by Lukas' impressive historical research on the Geniza and the brilliant characters involved with rescuing its treasure trove of documents. But his best flair is capturing the substance of this beautiful, haunted, shabby, beleaguered, yet still utterly sublime Midsection Eastern city." (Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit and The Arrogant Years)
