A Brilliant Life

Rachelle Unreich has been a journalist for thirty-eight years, including seven years in New York and Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in publications such as Harper's Bazaar, Elle, Rolling Stone, and the Sydney Morning Herald, and she also has been extensively published in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Southeast Asia. She lives in Melbourne, Australia.

"A delicate, evocative story of strength and survival that turns on one of the most powerful forces in the known universe: a mother's love. Braiding together the past and the present, A Brilliant Life shows how the two can never be separated-how, in families especially, we are shaped by the stories we inherit." - Jonathan Freedland, bestselling author of The Escape Artist

"If A Brilliant Life were a painting, it would be hanging in a Palazzo in Italy among the classic chiaroscuro paintings of Caravaggio-a technique from the Renaissance era where the contrast of light and dark brushstrokes tells the whole story with some melancholy shades. Unreich has cleverly painted her mother's story in all its shades of glory and despair; a woman who stepped into the canvas of life and painted her own bright fulfilling future." - Harper's Bazaar

"Journalist Unreich makes a graceful book debut with a family history, gleaned from interviews that she conducted with her 89-year-old mother, Mira, before she died from cancer . . . . A daughter's tender portrait of a woman who lived through terror." - Kirkus Reviews

"Well researched but never dry, the book shines when describing Mira's family and her capacity to see light through horrific darkness and notice the moments of serendipity . . . We are brought into the family fold and invited to join them in Mira's final days, enjoying the richness of the storytelling the way we might at a Shabbat meal." - Books+Publishing

"As cancer takes hold of Mira, her journalist daughter decides to interview her about her early life, her experiences in four concentration camps, her marriages and her new life in Australia. What she discovers, she relates with a filial devotion that is deeply poignant." - The Age