Release Date: February 25, 2025
Size: 6 x 9
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-296-5
eBook ISBN:
Library of Congress Control Number: TBD
Booksellers and Libraries: Order Info Here or at Ingram.

SYNOPSIS

It’s 1953. Soviets have the bomb and fear of communist influence in the US government and society at large is at its peak. In the quiet, rural town of Goshen, one family learns hiding in plain sight isn’t as easy as it seems.

Eavesdropper is the story of 14-year-old Sara, an inquisitive girl who lives with her progressive parents in a conservative New England small town, where they moved to avoid city life, polio, and surveillance. Sara faces the usual challenges of adolescence—friendships, hormones, and boys—amidst the backdrop of the isolated yet beautiful forest and the air raid drills at school. Partly by eavesdropping, Sara becomes increasingly aware of a protective veil of secrecy her parents have drawn around their past. As Sara’s curiosity grows, so does the persecution of the Red Scare, which infiltrates her small town, threatening to expose her family.

An intimate and literary historical fiction, this debut novel grapples with a coming of age story that asks what happens when personal values and moral beliefs collide with the political?

Praise

“Eavesdropper is a tender exploration of identity, courage, family dynamics, and the complexities of growing up in the tumultuous era of McCarthyism and the Rosenberg case. With a deft hand, Kivowitz draws upon her skills as a psychotherapist, raising themes that resonate powerfully in today’s political landscape, reminding the reader that, despite seemingly insurmountable hurdles, standing up against injustice is timeless. In an era where activism is again vital, this engrossing novel inspires readers to reflect on their own roles in the ongoing fight for truth and equality.”

–Dora Levy Mossanen, bestselling author of Harem, The Last Romanov, and Love and War in the Jewish Quarter

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“With arresting detail, Alexandra Kivowitz introduces us to a unique view of a dangerous, sinister time in our nation’s political history through the intimate, droll voice of Sara Green, our fourteen-year-old narrator, whose eavesdropping habits gradually expose the complicated lives of her protective parents. Harrowing situations unfold, and Sara’s passionately idealistic mother must ultimately and bravely confront the hysteria of McCarthyism, creating challenging consequences for Sara as she faces her own adolescent worries and troubling questions about the world. This is moving, intelligent, entertaining storytelling that resolves in a beautiful metaphorical finale of growth and understanding.”

–Leslie Monsour, author of The Alarming Beauty of the Sky and The House Sitter 

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“Our coming-of-age eavesdropper hides under the dining room table or in her bed listening to her mom and dad’s memories and fears. Jews escaping shtetels in Eastern Europe. Full-bore hunts for communists in America. She takes the bus alone to piano lesson, smells her grandfather’s cigar. She wants her parents and grandparents to talk to one another. She reminds us that history is the stories, not memorizing dates.”   

–Eve Hoffman, author of Memory and Complicity and Red Clay

Meet the Author

Alexandra Kivowitz, a transplant from New England, is a psychotherapist living in southern California with her husband Charles and a part-time dog named Maple. Eavesdropper is her first novel.