Upside-Down Coffee

One-to-one, drop by drop - only people can make peace. Upside-Down Coffee is a about Ruth Shapira, a native New Yorker who trades her scripted life as the daughter of one professor and the wife of another for a very different life - in Israel. Her regular coffee date on a trendy promenade with three other American immigrants not only gets her through the week, it gives her an anchor in the stormy country she calls home - that is, until the Second Lebanon War breaks out. As she struggles to maintain her equilibrium while her son fights on the front lines and rockets fall continually, just an hour away from her home, Ruth becomes entangled with two women who turn her life upside-down. Yelena, a traumatized Russian immigrant from a northern border town that is under constant rocket fire, moves into Ruth's house for safety. Terrified at first, she holes herself up in the Shapiras' tiny bomb shelter, but a war tragedy presents her with an opportunity to overcome her fears. Samira, Ruth's Arab house cleaner, is a powerhouse of charisma and far too smart for her profession. She draws Ruth into a joint venture that is exciting, but potentially risky. Ruth's American-liberal values are on trial, and almost none of the tools she imported stand up to the reality of life in the Middle East. But in the end, she re-discovers what she always knew: that peace, if possible at all, can only evolve through every day one-on-one human relationships.

Author: Kathryn Jacobi

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Publication Date: Mar 10, 2012

Number of Pages: 362 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: 146797806X

ISBN-13: 9781467978064