Haupt, Jennifer
WORK TITLE: In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://jenniferhaupt.com/author/
CITY: Seattle
STATE: WA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | no 96007025 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/no96007025 |
| HEADING: | Haupt, Jennifer |
| 000 | 00426nz a2200157n 450 |
| 001 | 835120 |
| 005 | 19960210061206.6 |
| 008 | 960209n| acannaab |n aaa c |
| 010 | __ |a no 96007025 |
| 035 | __ |a (OCoLC)oca04005526 |
| 035 | __ |a (DLC)no 96007025 |
| 040 | __ |a OCl |c OCl |
| 100 | 10 |a Haupt, Jennifer |
| 670 | __ |a Entrepreneur magazine small business legal guide, c1995: |b t.p. (Jennifer Haupt) |
| 953 | __ |a xx00 |
| 985 | __ |c OCLC |e LSPC |
PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
- Home - Seattle, WA.
CAREER
Journalist.
WRITINGS
- (With Barbara S. Shea) Entrepreneur Magazine: Small Business Legal Guide , Wiley (Hoboken, NJ), 1996
- I'll Stand by You: One Woman's Mission to Heal the Children of the World (nonfiction), Plume (New York, NY), 2013
- In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills (novel), Central Avenue Publishing (Chicago, IL), 2018
Contributor of articles to publications, including O, The Oprah Magazine, Rumpus, Spirituality & Health, Psychology Today, Travel & Leisure, and Sun.
SIDELIGHTS
Jennifer Haupt is a journalist who has traveled the world writing about business, human right, aid organizations, and redemption. Her nonfiction articles have appeared in various publications, including O, The Oprah Magazine, Psychology Today, Travel & Leisure, and the Sun.
In 1999, Haupt collaborated with Barbara S. Shea, founder of legal firm Court Coach, to publish Entrepreneur Magazine: Small Business Legal Guide. The book offers advice to small business managers and owners on understanding legal fees and legal issues. The authors provide basic legal knowledge, legal terminology, statutes and regulations, how to think like a lawyer, and negotiating leases and contracts. Information in the book, such as bankruptcy, taxes, litigation, and how to find a good lawyer, is appropriate for newcomers to business ownership and seasoned managers.
I’ll Stand by You
Haupt next wrote the 2013 I’ll Stand by You: One Woman’s Mission to Heal the Children of the World, a profile of New York-based Elissa Montanti who established the nonprofit organization, Elissa’s Global Medical Relief Fund, to help children around the world. Montanti had been dealing with crippling depression and anxiety after the deaths of her mother, grandmother, and former boyfriend. In 1997, the part-time singer-songwriter decided to write a song and sing at a Bosnian relief fund-raiser, which changed her life forever. When she saw a photo of fourteen-year-old Kenan, who lost both arms and leg to a landmine, Montanti invited the boy and his mother to the United States for prosthetics, physical therapy, and medical care. From that, Montanti quit her full-time job and established her charity organization operated from the walk-in closet in her home. Over the years, the charity has helped more than 150 children from war zones and natural disasters in twenty-two countries, including Bosnia, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Her response to why she is helping these children is to say, How could I not?
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews remarked that the book is “A moving testament to the will and single-mindedness of one woman determined to help those in need.” With hope, happiness, and love, “The author’s spirits are as changed in this straightforward and sweet narrative as the lives of those she helped,” according to a Publishers Weekly writer. Reviewer Scott Blakeman noted online at Huffington Post: “Her book is a stirring reminder of the difference one very determined woman can make, against great odds and bureaucratic red tape, in the lives of children devastated by war and destruction. And it also serves as a powerful antiwar statement.” Blakeman added that Montanti is an able diplomat and shining example of how Americans can help children in other parts of the world.
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
Haupt next published her first novel, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, in 2018. In 2000, New York City based Rachel Shepherd heads for Rwanda trying to track down her famous photo-journalist father, Henry Shepherd, who abandoned his family when Rachel was young. In Rwanda, she meets African-American Lillian Carlson who left Atlanta in 1968, heartbroken over the assassination of Martin Luther King. Lillian has built an orphanage in the Rift Valley to take care of children. It seems that Lillian had met Henry in 1965 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where he was assigned to take pictures of King. Henry went to Rwanda to help Lillian with the orphanage just after he left his family in New York. Now, Lillian says she has not heard from him in two years. As Rachel remains in Rwanda, she also meets Nadine, a Tutsi woman damaged by the horrors of the 1994 civil war, and Tucker, an ex-pat American doctor.
For the novel, Haupt used her experience as a journalist when she traveled to Rwanda in 2006 to cover issues of forgiveness and grief twelve years after the Rwanda civil war and genocide that killed over a million people. Over a month, she interviewed survivors and aid workers and learned of the resiliency of people who seek redemption and forgiveness. In In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, Haupt flashes back to the 1970s and 1990s to reveal Lillian’s and Henry’s backgrounds. “Each heartrending detail is revealed with perfect timing, the expert pacing of the story escalating at every turn. It is both a suspenseful and an emotionally graceful novel,” according to Aimee Jodoin in ForeWord.
In an interview on the Authors 18 website, Haupt discussed why she chose to write a novel rather than a memoir based on her travels to Rwanda. She explained that “amahoro” is a greeting meaning peace. “I wanted to be the conduit for telling the stories of amahoro that I had heard in Rwanda, from Tutsis and Hutus. I wanted to explore more deeply the meaning of amahoro, from many different world views. I wanted to excavate my own grief more fully and, perhaps, find my own vision of amahoro,” she said.
Haupt’s debut novel is a page-turning narrative that embraces the peaceful message of amahoro and offers “much wisdom about the ways we strive to move forward and, however imperfectly, find peace,” according to Oprah website reviewer Dawn Raffel. Online at Washington Independent Review of Books, critic K.L. Romor offered: “This story screams to be heard by those of us fortunate enough to live in safety and prosperity. We need to know what happened on the other side of the world; we need to feel the despair that was left after the genocide, and the new hope that’s dawning through what the Rwandans call amahoro—peace.”
In a review of the book, a writer in Publishers Weekly Online noted that Nadine is the only major character who is Rwandan, “the rest are American, leaving the reader disconnected from the people whose plight constitutes one of the major themes of the book.” Nevertheless, the writer admitted that Haupt presents a story of humanity and hope. Observing that the “plot that is less about race than it is an exploration of grief, justice, family, and reconciliation,” Booklist critic Bethany Latham added that Haupt examines the villains and atrocities through different perspectives with a focus on healing rather than revenge.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, February 15, 2018, Bethany Latham, review of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, p. 24.
ForeWord, February 27, 2018, Aimee Jodoin, review of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills.
Publishers Weekly, May 21, 2012, review of I’ll Stand by You: One Woman’s Mission to Heal the Children of the World, p. 49.
ONLINE
Authors 18, https://www.authors18.com/ (April 4, 2018), author interview.
Huffington Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ (January 28, 2013), Scott Blakeman, review of I’ll Stand by You.
Kirkus Reviews, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (May 31, 2012), review of I’ll Stand by You.
Oprah, http://www.oprah.com/ (May 15, 2018), Dawn Raffel, review of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills.
Publishers Weekly Online, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (August 1, 2018), review of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills.
Washington Independent Review of Books, http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/ (May 14, 2018), K. L. Romo, review of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills.
- Entrepreneur Magazine: Small Business Legal Guide - 1996 Wiley, https://smile.amazon.com/Entrepreneur-Magazine-Small-Business-Legal/dp/0471119504/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=&dpID=21TY1955M5L&preST=_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=detail
- I'll Stand by You: One Woman's Mission to Heal the Children of the World - 2013 Plume, https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0142196894/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tpbk_p1_i1
- In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills - 2018 Central Avenue Publishing, https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/1771681330/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tpbk_p1_i0
- Jennifer Haupt - http://jenniferhaupt.com/author/bio/
Bio
Jennifer Haupt Writer
BUY NOW!
In stores
April 1, 2018Amazon Buy Button
Barnes and Noble Buy Button
Indiebound Buy Button
Jennifer Haupt has been a journalist for more than 25 years, writing primarily about women prompted by their own depression and grief to reach out and help others to heal. Her essays and articles have been published in O, The Oprah Magazine, The Rumpus, Psychology Today, Travel & Leisure, The Seattle Times, Spirituality & Health, The Sun, and many other publications. Her Psychology Today blog, One True Thing, is a collection of essays contributed by and interviews with bestselling and emerging authors. In the Shadow of Ten Thousand Hills is her first novel.
Jennifer has traveled to Africa five times, as well as to Haiti, Lebanon, and other locations for business and pleasure. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two sons and Duck Toller.
Why I Wrote This Novel
I grew up in a large Jewish community in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although I was never particularly religious, I always felt a strong identity as a Jew. My husband and I went to Europe as newlyweds, thirty years ago, and visited the site of the Dachau concentration camp where some of my relatives died. I remember it as informative but surreal, a museum wiped clean of the horrors. It was as if the atrocities never happened. I wanted to feel anger, grief…something. I felt nothing.I went to Rwanda in 2006 as a journalist, a decade after the genocide that wiped out over a million people, to explore the connections between forgiveness and grief. I spent a month interviewing genocide survivors at the churches and schools where there were still bloodstains on the walls and the bones of anonymous victims carefully stacked on shelves. It struck me that I was always the only one at these memorials. The guides were survivors, usually women, whose families and friends had been murdered at the site.I felt a deep connection with these women, not just as a Jew whose relatives had also been murdered in genocide, but as a human being whose soul ached for humanity.
It struck me that the common human bond, the thing that ties us all together and transcends our differences, is grief. My quest became more about finding grace — personal peace — than forgiveness. In Rwanda, they have a word for this: Amahoro. It means peace, but so much more. This is the core theme of the novel I worked on for eleven years. Now, more than ever, I believe the world needs Amahoro.
- Psychology Today - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/experts/jennifer-haupt
Jennifer Haupt
Jennifer Haupt writes about the connection between grief and love, healing depression through connecting with others, and finding family in unexpected places/ways. She has contributed reported pieces and essays to AARP: The Magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, Parents, Reader’s Digest, AAA Travel, airline in-flights, and many other publications.
You can read more of Jennifer's work at www.jenniferhaupt.com and check her out on Facebook. Follow Jennifer on Twitter: @Jennifer_Haupt.
Author of
One True ThingA collection of essays and articles about finding meaning in the big and small moments in life. Read now.
Books by Jennifer Haupt
Image of I'll Stand By You: One Woman's Mission to Heal the Children of the World
I'll Stand By You: One Woman's Mission to Heal the Children of the World
Image of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
Recent Posts
The Art of the Playlist
Author Amy Mason Doan: 7 tips for creating a novel playlist.
Sally Koslow Dishes on Hollywood Gossip Maven Sheilah Graham
Another Side of Paradise: Graham's rollercoaster affair with Fitzgerald.
How I Discovered Personal Peace in Rwanda
Amahoro: Grace when there can be no forgiveness.
8 Ways Discomfort is Good for Creativity
Novelist Jessica Keener: How she became comfortable with the unknown.
Links
Psychology Today
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
Aimee Jodoin
ForeWord.
(Feb. 27, 2018): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 ForeWord http://www.forewordmagazine.com
Full Text:
Jennifer Haupt; IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLS; Central Avenue Publishing (Fiction: Historical) 15.95 ISBN: 9781771681339
Byline: Aimee Jodoin
In the wake of the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s, those who fought on both sides of the war -- and foreigners who came to help but who were inspired to stay -- seek some form of redemption, each in their own way. Four broken individuals converge at an orphanage in the rural countryside to recover from their respective tragedies. The brutality of these events ties these people together and ultimately brings them forgiveness and hope, or kwizera.
Set in the year 2000, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills follows Rachel, an American who recently lost her mother and unborn baby; Lillian, an expat who, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., started an orphanage in Rwanda; Tucker, a doctor who originally came to the country with the Red Cross; and Nadine, a young Tutsi woman whom Lillian adopted as her own after her family was killed. Rachel flies to Rwanda in search of her photojournalist father, Henry, who, according to these three people she befriends, has not been seen in the country for two years.
Flashbacks to the 1970s and 1990s are scattered skillfully throughout the novel. They provide a peek into Henry and Lillian's life as their secrets unfold in 2000. Each heartrending detail is revealed with perfect timing, the expert pacing of the story escalating at every turn. It is both a suspenseful and an emotionally graceful novel, even as Lillian, Tucker, and Nadine relay their brutal experiences.
While In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills remains true to setting, both in place and in time, it is also timely, and reveals how forgiveness is possible even during the trials following the unspeakable acts of a horrific war. Author Jennifer Haupt's experience as a journalist in Rwanda plants the
1 of 4 7/13/18, 10:51 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
seeds of truth that bloom on every page.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Jodoin, Aimee. "In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills." ForeWord, 27 Feb. 2018. Book Review Index
Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529896274/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=70b98e2c. Accessed 13 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529896274
2 of 4 7/13/18, 10:51 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
Bethany Latham
Booklist.
114.12 (Feb. 15, 2018): p24. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills.
By Jennifer Haupt.
Apr. 2018. 384p. IPG/Central Avenue, paper, $15.95 (9781771681339).
New York, 2000. Rachel Shepherd, estranged from her husband and reeling from the loss of both her mother and unborn baby, travels to Rwanda in search of the father who left when she was a child. Shifting time frames, the story switches to her father and his love, Lillian Carlson, an African American who leaves Atlanta after the King assassination to found an orphanage in Rwanda. Haupt's novel touches on both the 1960s struggle for civil rights in America and the horror of the 1990s Rwandan genocide in a plot that is less about race than it is an exploration of grief, justice, family, and reconciliation. A journalist who covered Rwanda, Haupt highlights how those unrelated by blood can come together as family, offering love, strength, and understanding. There are villains and horrible atrocities with far-reaching effects, but as Haupt examines events through different perspectives, the focus is on healing rather than revenge and anger. This debut novel is a good choice for those seeking tales of hope after adversity, and it may prove popular with book clubs.--Bethany Latham
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Latham, Bethany. "In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills." Booklist, 15 Feb. 2018, p. 24. Book Review
Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531171523/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=b9fd0744. Accessed 13 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A531171523
3 of 4 7/13/18, 10:51 PM
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MA...
I'll Stand by You: One Woman's
Mission to Heal the Children of the
World
Publishers Weekly.
259.21 (May 21, 2012): p49. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2012 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
I'll Stand by You: One Woman's Mission to Heal the Children of the World
Elissa Montanti with Jennifer Haupt. Dutton, $25.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-525-95295-4
After her parents' divorce and the deaths of her mother, an old boyfriend, and grandmother, Montani was holed up in her small Staten Island apartment working as a medical assistant and suffering from debilitating panic attacks and depression. Her fog lifted when she wrote and performed a song for a local Bosnian relief fund-raiser in 1997. She was inspired to do whatever she could when she found a letter from a 14-year-old Bosnian boy named Kenan who had lost his arms and a leg in a land mine. He had outgrown his donated prosthetics and desperately needed new ones. "I want to help," Montanti said without hesitation, realizing her own problems paled in comparison. Soliciting donations from companies, surgeons, and airlines, the Global Medical Relief Fund was born. Kenan and his mother flew to New York City and stayed with the author while he underwent physical therapy and fittings. With no money, no office (except her closet), and, eventually, no job, the GMRF went on to bring more than 150 children to the U.S. to be fit with prosthetics. The author's spirits are as changed in this straightforward and sweet narrative as the lives of those she helped--and she finds hope, happiness, and love along her difficult but rewarding journey. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"I'll Stand by You: One Woman's Mission to Heal the Children of the World." Publishers Weekly,
21 May 2012, p. 49. Book Review Index Plus, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc /A290734612/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=03df0e5c. Accessed 13 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A290734612
4 of 4 7/13/18, 10:51 PM
- Kirkus
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/elissa-montanti/stand-by-you/
Word count: 356I'LL STAND BY YOU by Elissa Montanti
I'LL STAND BY YOU
One Woman's Mission to Heal the Children of the World
by Elissa Montanti with Jennifer Haupt
BUY NOW FROMGET WEEKLY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
Email AddressEmail this review
KIRKUS REVIEWAn uplifting story of one woman's compassionate aid to wounded children.
Almost 15 years ago, part-time singer-songwriter Montanti was battling severe depression and panic attacks brought on by the deaths of her mother, grandmother and first love. Unable to write or perform her music, she was forced out of this "very dark hole" by a friend who asked her to help with a fundraiser for war-torn Bosnia. Seeing pictures of children who had lost limbs during the war triggered an emotional response, allowing Montanti "to hear a faint melody.” From there, she embarked on her own crusade to aid these wounded children. She quit her full-time job and started the Global Medical Relief Fund, a nonprofit organization run from Montanti's walk-in closet that would bring wounded children to the United States to receive free prosthetics. Aided primarily by the Shriners, Montanti opened her home, life and heart to these children, giving hope to the victims and their families. Despite the difficulties in obtaining documentation needed by Homeland Security and reams of red tape to access exit visas from foreign countries, Montanti has successfully helped more than 150 children from around the world. Bosnians, Haitians, Afghanis and Iraqis have all shared her home, with music and laughter serving as the universal languages. When asked why she has done so much for these children, the author replies, "how could I not?”—she believes "there are actions we can all take in our daily lives to help others in need and create a global family."
A moving testament to the will and single-mindedness of one woman determined to help those in need.
Pub Date: Aug. 2nd, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-525-95295-4
Page count: 288pp
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 31st, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15th, 2012 - Huffington Post
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-blakeman/ill-stand-by-you-one-woma_b_2564179.html
Word count: 487HE BLOG 01/28/2013 04:36 pm ET Updated Mar 30, 2013
I’ll Stand By You: One Woman’s Mission to Heal the Children of the World
headshot
By Scott BlakemanIn 1997, Elissa Montanti was asked to write a song to raise money for children injured in war torn Bosnia. That led to a meeting with Bosnia’s Ambassador to the UN Muhamed Sacirbey who showed her a letter that read:
“My name is Kenan Malkic, I am 14 years old and have stepped on a landmine. I have no arms and a leg. I am asking all god and merciful people to help me.”
To Montanti, Kenan’s letter was an answer to her own letter to God that she wrote as a way to find her way out of the depression and anxiety that had enveloped her life. Her immediate response was “I want to help”.
For the past 15 years, Montanti, author (with Jennifer Haupt) of the new book, I’ll Stand By You: One Woman’s Mission to Heal the Children of the World, has helped more than 150 children injured in war and by disaster, accident and illness. Her organization Global Medical Relief Fund for Children originally was run out of a walk in closet, and is now housed in the newly built Dare To Dream house on Ms. Montanti’s native Staten Island.
I’ll Stand By You is a simply moving tale that recounts Montanti’s childhood adversity and tragedy, and how she escaped from her own darkness by helping other children like Kenan, who now leads a productive personal and professional life. Each child she helps obtain the prosthetics, reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation they could not receive in their own country becomes part of Montanti’s global family as they stay in her home during their repeated visits for medical care.
Her book is a stirring reminder of the difference one very determined woman can make, against great odds and bureaucratic red tape, in the lives of children devastated by war and destruction. And it also serves as a powerful antiwar statement when the book details the thousands of children maimed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, a sobering reality that has received far too little media attention. And when she travels to Haiti, to help children who lost limbs as a result of the earthquake, the utter personal devastation such natural disasters can cause is also brought into focus more sharply than any news coverage.
And by tirelessly traveling the globe to give children the opportunity to live a full and hopeful life, Elissa Montanti of Staten Island also ably serves as a diplomat and a timely example of what Americans can do to help the children of the world.
Follow Scott Blakeman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/scottblakeman
headshot
Scott Blakeman
Laughing Liberally - All About Romance
https://allaboutromance.com/book-review/in-the-shadow-of-10000-hills-by-jennifer-haupt/
Word count: 997Desert Isle Keeper
In the Shadow of 10,000 HillsJennifer Haupt
Buy This Book
One of my 2018 reading goals is to increase the number of books I read that take place in places other than the U.S. and Europe, so when I read the blurb for In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, I leapt at the chance to review it. It’s a story of indescribable depth, and I’m so very glad I took a chance on an unknown author and picked it up.
Rachel Shepherd’s father abandoned her when she was a young child, a fact that has shaped her life in ways she doesn’t fully understand. It’s been nearly twenty years since she saw or heard from him, and the pain of his absence sometimes feels as fresh as it did on the day she woke up to find him gone. Now, after suffering a miscarriage, Rachel is feeling particularly adrift. Her husband seems to expect her to set aside her grief and get on with the business of living, but Rachel isn’t ready to do that quite yet, and instead, she feels strangely compelled to reconnect with her father. Maybe if she learns why he left her and her mother all those years ago, she can finally find some peace.
Thirty years earlier, Lillian Carlson left the United States behind and headed to Rwanda, a place where she hoped she could make a noticeable difference to those around her. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. hit her hard, and she’s no longer content to live a life of privilege and plenty. Instead, she establishes a small orphanage near the Rift Valley and has spent the past three decades creating a safe haven for the children orphaned by the seemingly endless violence the citizens of Rwanda visit upon one another.
Rachel discovers a link between her father and Lillian, and she immediately reaches out to Lillian via email, hoping the other woman might be able to help her reconnect with him. There’s a part of Lillian that knows she should respond to Rachel’s request and share the story of the tumultuous relationship she shared with Henry, but another part of her is unwilling to open up old wounds. She and Henry have been lovers on and off for the past thirty years, but it’s been five years since Lillian last laid eyes on him, and the reasons for his sudden departure from her life aren’t things she feels comfortable sharing with his daughter. Fortunately, Tucker, a local doctor is able to convince her that opening up to Rachel might bring her some amount of personal healing. It’s not an easy decision, but once Rachel arrives in Rwanda and begins working her way into the hearts of those around her, Lillian begins to warm to the younger woman.
With the help of Lillian and her adopted daughter Nadine, Rachel begins to piece together bits of information about her father’s life. Unfortunately, what she discovers will test her in ways she never thought possible, for Henry was keeping some terrible secrets from everyone who loved him. What these three very different women discover as they search for the truth about Henry and about themselves could bring them closer together, or tear them apart forever.
The story is told from various points of view. Rachel and Lillian are our main narrators, but we also spend time with Tucker, Nadine, and even Henry himself. I’m a big fan of this narrative style, as it allows the reader to see things from a variety of perspectives rather than only getting one or two sides of the story.
The author has managed to create a group of very complex characters, people I sometimes struggled to like. Lillian was especially difficult for me to relate to, because while I admired the selfless way she opens her heart and home to countless orphaned children, I sometimes found her attitude toward the adults in her life hard to swallow. She seems to always want to be the person in charge, even if the decisions she makes aren’t the right ones, and she obviously resents anyone who tries to change her mind about things. She does get better about this as the story progresses though, and I liked her quite a bit better in the second half of the book than I did at the beginning.
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills proved to be a very challenging read for me, not because I disliked the story, but because the subject matter was incredibly difficult to take in. I don’t live under a rock, so I’m aware of the brutality taking place all over the world, but Ms. Haupt brings it to life in such a stark, visceral way. There were a few times I had to step away from the book, just to give myself time to process some of the horrifying things the characters were experiencing. Even so, I am so glad I chose to read this novel, and I urge anyone looking for a fascinating story with diverse characters and a complex plot to give it a try.
Buy it at: Amazon/iBooks/Nook/Kobo
Buy In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt:
Buy from Amazon.com Get it on iBooks Nook Kobo
Book Details
Reviewer: Shannon Dyer
Review Date: April 4, 2018
Publication Date: 04/2018
Grade: A-
Sensuality Subtle
Book Type: Women's Fiction
Review Tags:
Recent CommentsRobin on Scoring the Player's Baby by Naima Simone
Caz Owens on How to Keep a Secret by Sarah Morgan
KLA on More than a Mistress
KLA on Only Enchanting
Deborah on How to Keep a Secret by Sarah Morgan - Authors 18
https://www.authors18.com/interview-with-jennifer-haupt-author-of-in-the-shadow-of-10000-hills/
Word count: 1343Interview with Jennifer Haupt, author of IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLS
Published on April 4, 2018Meet Jennifer Haupt, author of IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLS.
Q: Why did you go to Rwanda in 2007?
A: The short answer is that I was a reporter exploring the connection between grief and forgiveness. I went there to interview genocide survivors. I also went to interview humanitarian aid workers about why they were drawn to this tiny country still grieving a decade after the 1994 genocide.
I had an handful of assignments for magazines, writing about humanitarian efforts and they all fell through for one reason or another. That’s when I decided to hire a driver and go into the 10,000 hills to visit the small churches and schools with bloodstains on the walls and skulls of anonymous victims stacked on shelves. I wanted to trace the steps of the genocide and talk with the genocide survivors, mostly women, who were guides at these rarely visited memorials.
Q: What did you find in Rwanda that was surprising?
A: I didn’t even realize until I was in Rwanda that I needed to address my own grief for my sister who died when I was age two. It was forbidden to speak of Susie in our household; that’s how my parents dealt with their grief and I respect that. In Rwanda, it felt safe to grieve for the first time. My grief was miniscule compared with the genocide survivors. And yet, we shared a powerful mixture of emotions — compassion, sorrow, longing — that crossed the boundaries of race and culture.
What struck me was that many of the aid workers I interviewed were also grieving over the loss of loved ones. They came to Rwanda as a way of reaching out to help others, and also to heal their own souls. Most of the people I spoke with, no matter if they were Rwandan, American, European, were, in some way, grieving. I had always thought the universal commonality that connected all of us was love, but I learned in Rwanda that grief is an equally strong bond. Grief and love form the bridge that connects us all.
Q: How did your Jewish background effect you?
A: Fifteen years before I went to Rwanda, I visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial site in Germany. The site is an impressive museum with photo exhibits and artifacts. The former prison barracks and crematorium where some of my relatives may have been imprisoned and murdered were now scrubbed clean. I went to Dachau expecting to feel sorrow, maybe anger, but instead I felt a disturbing emptiness. Nothing.
During the two weeks I spent traveling in the ten thousand hills of Rwanda, I couldn’t help but think of my visit to Dachau. Thousands of people visit Dachau each year; we Jew vow to remember the atrocities that happened there. Never again. It struck me that I was nearly always the only visitor at the dozens of tiny bloodstained memorials I visited. There was always a guide, usually a woman, a lone Tutsi survivor whose family members were murdered at the church or school.
I remember at one church, I was met by a woman named Julia, in her mid-forties, around my age at the time. She had survived by laying on the floor among the dead bodies. Now, she gave tours so that no one would forget. I talked with Julia about her family members and friends who had been murdered here. We cried together; my tears were, in part, for my relatives and members of my tribe who had been murdered during the holocaust. I experienced a powerful connection with this stranger who lived halfway around the world from me, in a culture so different than mine, through both love and grief. I wanted to share that experience with others through the characters in my novel.
Q: Why did you write this novel, instead of a memoir about your time in Rwanda?
A: Amahoro is a Kinyarwanda greeting that translates literally to peace, but means so much more when exchanged between Hutus and Tutsis since the genocide. It’s a shared desire for grace when there can be no forgiveness. It’s an acknowledgement of shared pain, an apology, a quest for reconciliation. I wanted to be the conduit for telling the stories of amahoro that I had heard in Rwanda, from Tutsis and Hutus. I wanted to explore more deeply the meaning of amahoro, from many different world views. I wanted to excavate my own grief more fully and, perhaps, find my own vision of amahoro. I could only do all of that, I felt, as a novelist.
Q: Why did you choose to tell this story through the eyes of three women of different ages and cultural backgrounds?
A: I wanted to offer Westerners a window into a very different world, and to do that I started with an American protagonist leaving everything she knows to try and find amahoro. Rachel Shepherd is searching for her father, Henry, in Rwanda. She is also searching for the piece of her heart that he took when he left her twenty years earlier. The piece that knows how to love: like a child, like a wife, like a mother.
I also wanted to connect the African-American civil rights struggle with the struggle for civil rights of the Tutsis in Rwanda. That’s where Lillian comes from. Once I decided that she and Henry Shepherd had an ill-fated interracial love affair during the late 1960s in Atlanta, their story took on a life of it’s own. Lillian is on equal footing with Rachel as a central character in this novel.
Originally, this was just Rachel and Lillian’s journey: The intertwining stories of two women searching for the man they both love. Two women trying to piece together a family. I didn’t add Nadine’s story until eight years after I started writing this novel. She’s based on a 19-year-old woman I met in Rwanda who had left after the genocide and was returning for the trial of a Hutu man, a former neighbor, who she had seen shoot her mother and sister.
Nadine is a fusion of this woman’s story as well as other stories I heard in Rwanda — and then, of course, my imagination. She’s the lynch-pin that hold together the stories of Lillian, Henry, Rachel, and Rachel’s love interest in Rwanda, an American doctor running from his past who has become like an older brother to Nadine.
Q: Is this a political story about the genocide?
A: No, this is a story that is set against the backdrop of pre-genocide, the genocide, and then after the genocide. I conducted a lot of research about Rwandan history but I don’t claim to be an expert on the country’s politics or tumultuous past. I do present some background about the genocide, which is factual, but this is historical fiction. The story is about the experiences of the characters during this time in history.
BUY:
AMAZON
BARNES & NOBLE
POWELL’S BOOKS
IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLSJennifer Haupt has been a journalist for more than 25 years. Her essays and articles have been published in O, The Oprah Magazine, The Rumpus, Psychology Today, Travel & Leisure, The Seattle Times, Spirituality & Health, and many other publications. Her well-read Psychology Today blog, One True Thing, is a collection of essays and interviews with bestselling authors. In the Shadow of Ten Thousand Hills is her first novel. She lives in Seattle with her husband, two sons and Duck Toller.
For more information about Jennifer Haupt and In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills please visit www.jenniferhaupt.com.
- Paperback Paris
http://www.paperbackparis.com/in-the-shadow-of-10000-hills-jennifer-haupt-book-review/
Word count: 723n the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, Jennifer Haupt: Book Review
A tale of love, family, and war.
Leah Rodriguez
Leah Rodriguez4-Star RatingsAdult FictionARC ReviewsBook ReviewsHistorical7 months ago
published on Dec. 16, 2017 @ 10:00 am
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills Jennifer Haupt Book ReviewCentral Avenue Publishing / Jennifer Haupt
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills Book Cover Title: In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
Author: Jennifer Haupt
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Release Date: April 1, 2018
Format: Paperback
Pages: 384In 1968, a disillusioned Lillian Carlson left Atlanta after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She found meaning in the hearts of orphaned children in Rwanda and cobbled together her own small orphanage in the Rift Valley. Three decades later, in New York City, Rachel Shepherd, lost and heartbroken herself, embarks on a journey to find the father who abandoned her, a now-famous photographer. When an online search turns up a clue to his whereabouts, Rachel travels to Rwanda to connect with an unsuspecting and uncooperative Lillian. As Rachel tries to unravel the mystery of her father's disappearance, she finds an unexpected ally in a young Tutsi woman who lived through a profound experience alongside her father. Set amongst the gaping wounds of a healing country, follow the intertwining stories of three women who discover something unexpected: grace when there can be no forgiveness.
Goodreads Barnes & Noble
Jennifer Haupt‘s debut novel In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills tackles heavy subject matter of both the personal and political. It is just as much a story about the large-scale brutality of the Rwandan genocide and the Civil Rights movement as it is about the smaller tragedies of the family unit. The multiple-point-of-view narrative Haupt builds is an all-encompassing tale of love, loss, family, and the horrors of war.
The novel begins with Rachel Shepherd, a 33-year-old bartender, who desperately wants to find out what happened to her father, Henry Shepherd. He left the family when Rachel was eight. For many years she thought that Henry—now a famous photographer—had not bothered to make contact with her at all throughout her childhood and young adulthood. She comes to find, however, that things were not as they seemed. Her mother, Merilee, has just died from cancer, and, on her deathbed, suggests that Henry may have tried to reach out to young Rachel after all. Her jealousy over the bond Henry and Rachel shared, as well as Henry’s constant traveling, made Merilee resentful.
Now, some twenty-five years later, Rachel discovers a treasure trove of postcards Henry had sent to her over the years hidden inside a box Merilee left Rachel after she died. She needs to know more about him, especially since her marriage is crumbling and everything rests on the birth of her baby girl.
Halfway across the world, a woman named Lillian Carlson is running an orphanage in Rwanda for children who have lost their families in the war. She, too, is coping with the loss of Henry Shepherd with whom she’s had an intimate relationship since she was a young woman. For years, Henry had been a constant in her life until he moved to London permanently, effectively abandoning another family.
Rachel reaches out to her with the hope that she will be able to give her some information about Henry and help her get closure for the sake of her own family. From that moment on, the lives of these two women and their allies are bound together by the presence/absence of Henry Shepherd.
Haupt does an excellent job of building a sound narrative driven by the voices of well-developed characters. Their introspection provides moments of profound insight and clarity, exhibiting their greatest passions and vulnerabilities. Though the transition between these multiple perspectives is not always smooth, the plotting of each moment—and the shifting back and forth between time periods—appears effortless for Haupt.
I highly recommend In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills for a story that moves seamlessly through eras, countries, and heartbreaks without breaking stride. It is beautiful, poignant, and immensely readable.
This post contains affiliate links. Paperback Paris may receive a small commission for any purchases made after clicking our links.
- Washington Independent Review of Books
http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/bookreview/in-the-shadow-of-10000-hills-a-novel
Word count: 742In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills: A Novel
By Jennifer Haupt Central Avenue Publishing 384 pp.
Reviewed by K.L. Romo
May 14, 2018In this moving story spanning 30+ years, readers are taken on an intimate and anguished journey through the Rwandan genocide.
In 1965, young Henry Shepherd meets Lillian Carlson at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where he is sent to take pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. His photo of this optimistic young girl and MLK captures the hope of a divided nation and is featured on the cover of Life magazine.
The fact that Henry is white and Lillian is black doesn’t prevent the spark that ignites a passion between them — their love for each other and their desire to change the world. But when Henry is attacked because he loves a black woman, he realizes the bubble of serenity he shares with Lillian is a dangerous illusion and returns to his native Florida.
Fear causes Henry to seek security in place of idealism. He settles for marriage with a woman he doesn’t love after she becomes pregnant, and then resigns himself to the dull work of ad-agency photography.
After Henry’s retreat, Lillian marries, but loses her new husband in the Vietnam War. Battling her grief, she moves to Kenya to teach at an orphanage, living out MLK’s message. In 1973, Lillian sends a letter to Henry telling him of her plans to open her own orphanage in Mubaro, Rwanda, at the foothills of the majestic Virunga Mountains.
After reading Lillian’s letter, Henry is torn between Rachel, the 7-year-old daughter he adores, and the woman he never stopped loving. And what of his yearning to document the world through his camera lens? Henry must choose between a life of fulfillment with his soulmate and a life with his beloved child.
Fast-forward to the year 2000. The now 33-year-old Rachel longs for a family, yearning for the father she hasn’t seen in over 25 years. If she can track down the woman on the cover of Life, she might be able to find the father who left her so many years ago.
She soon embarks on a journey to Rwanda.
Enter Nadine, Henry and Lillian’s adopted daughter, a Tutsi girl Henry saved from the 1994 mass killing in Mubaro. As Nadine and Rachel search for answers to heal their respective wounds, they discover how much they have in common, even though their lives are so very different. With the help of Nadine and Lillian, Rachel pieces together the last quarter-century of her father’s life and finally begins to understand him.
The 1990s Rwandan genocide committed by the Hutus against the Tutsis is the central theme connecting the characters of this beautiful and chilling novel and illustrates life in rural Rwanda both before and after the Slaughter, as Lillian calls it. As far as she’s concerned, genocide is too kind a term.
In 2006, author Jennifer Haupt spent a month in Rwanda interviewing survivors of the Slaughter, that dark event which killed over a million people. Rwandans believe that God lives in the 10,000 hills of Rwanda but became lost in the Rift Valley during the genocide, wandering for 90 days, trying to see through tears of despair. The soil there is now fertile from the remains of hundreds of thousands of bodies left after the killing.
Through her interviews, Haupt discovered the Rwandan people’s search for truth, justice, and reconciliation. This story screams to be heard by those of us fortunate enough to live in safety and prosperity.
We need to know what happened on the other side of the world; we need to feel the despair that was left after the genocide, and the new hope that’s dawning through what the Rwandans call amahoro — peace.
K.L. Romo writes about life on the fringe: Teetering dangerously on the edge is more interesting than standing safely in the middle. She is passionate about women’s issues, loves noisy clocks and fuzzy blankets, but HATES the word normal. Her historical novel, Life Before, is about two women separated by a century who discover they’ve shared a soul. Find her on Twitter at @klromo.
Like what we do? Click here to support the nonprofit Independent! - Publisher's Weekly
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-77168-133-9
Word count: 269In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
Jennifer Haupt. Central Avenue (IPG, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (384p) ISBN 978-1-77168-133-9
A woman’s pursuit of the truth about what happened to her father leads her to post-genocide Rwanda in Haupt’s ambitious debut. Rachel Shepherd’s search for her estranged father, photographer Henry Shepherd, leads her to an orphanage in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda in the year 2000. There she meets and is welcomed by Lillian Carlson, an African-American woman from Atlanta who runs an orphanage that she built with Henry after he left his family in New York. Lillian welcomes Rachel but says no one has heard from Henry in two years. Rachel stays on in the hopes of learning more. She meets Nadine, a young Tutsi woman who barely survived the 1994 massacres; Tucker, a Californian doctor; and many others who live with memories Rachel cannot even fathom. Their stories and the photos Henry left behind help her to understand what it really means to have strength of character and to love. Unfortunately, Nadine is the only major character who is Rwandan; the rest are American, leaving the reader disconnected from the people whose plight constitutes one of the major themes of the book. But the Rwanda described in the text is beautiful, a place where “pink winged geese glide among over-sized purple lilies that bow like ladies in waiting,” and, like the main narrative, it is alive with people working to come together and heal. Even though it’s ostensibly about the Rwandan genocide, Haupt’s story is one of humanity and hope. (Apr.) - Oprah
http://www.oprah.com/book/great-mdw-reads-in-the-shadow-of-10000-hills?editors_pick_id=73521
Word count: 211In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills
By Jennifer Haupt
384 pages; Central AvenueAvailable at:
Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | IndieBound
Haupt's debut novel, informed by her experiences as a journalist in Rwanda, is more than a page-turning narrative; it's an embrace of the Kinyarwanda greeting amahoro—"peace." The story opens in 2000 with an American woman, Rachel Shepherd, who is determined to find her long-lost father after the stillbirth of her child. The search leads her to the home of her dad's second wife, Lillian, a black American civil rights activist, now caring for orphans in Mubaro, Rwanda, as the country tries to heal from genocide. Her father has vanished again, but Rachel soon becomes enmeshed in the family Lillian has created and the daily perils of a community striving for reconciliation yet still simmering with violence, loss and fear. Everyday actions—a former child soldier "dithering over a chocolate croissant or a cinnamon beignet"—are shadowed by a constant awareness of recent horror. As one woman says, "How can we start over?" In time, the explosive secret of Rachel's father is revealed—as is much wisdom about the ways we strive to move forward and, however imperfectly, find peace.
— Dawn Raffel
Published 05/15/2018