Natalya, God's messenger

the long version

On a summer afternoon at the close of World War II, Rita, the twenty-seven-year-old daughter of struggling Russian immigrants, loses her job as a machinist, and takes over a palm-reading practice on Manhattan's Lower East Side. As this act of desperation blooms into a calling, Rita is reborn as Natalya, God's Messenger. Word of her powers circulates, and her business thrives. In palm after outthrust palm, Rita reads the turbulent future of a country facing profound social upheaval, foretelling the atomic bomb, the Cold War, civil rights protest, and the assassination of a president. Success comes at a price, however. Rita's former lover, Leo, a passionate leftist, abandons her to pursue his political convictions. And years later, when they are reunited in a mad dash to Dallas in November, 1963, Rita and Leo discover that sight has given way to blindness, and blindness to sight. At a time when the nation is poised on the brink of change, Rita finally reads Leo's palm, and sees him as though for the first time. With flair and verve, Natalya, God's Messenger captures the vibrant spirit of postwar America and marks the debut of an already seasoned literary talent.