Finding Melody Sullivan

Finding Melody Sullivan is a must-read. Rothchild offers readers a multifaceted narrative of a teen-aged girl navigating friendship, identity, family, and grief, in the context of witnessing a military occupation. Rothchild treats all her characters with respect and compassion, and the result is a deeply human story which is, at turns enraging, humorous, surprising, and always honest and authentic.

—Jen Marlowe, author, playwright, filmmaker

A beautifully told story of a 16-year-old from Vermont inspecting the scraps of her messy life…

—Duncan Lyon, Sand Paper Stone

In this sensitively told story, Rothchild weaves a tale of overcoming grief and discovery during a crucial time in her young protagonist's life. Rothchild gracefully moves through this young girl's profound pain, layering her storytelling with her fragile character's struggles as she reconciles her loss and uncovers the truth about family, friendship, and the broader conflict in the world she encounters. The young characters in her story have something to teach us.

—Paul Zarou, Arab Boy Delivered

In Finding Melody Sullivan, Alice Rothchild draws on her experiences as a feminist doctor and as an activist in the struggle for justice in Palestine to write a novel which, while nominally young adult literature, could equally well be read by not so young adults. 

Her protagonist, Melody Sullivan, the possibly atheist child of a Jewish mother who has recently died of cancer, is adrift in profound grief, teenage angst, and a budding sense of sexual arousal. She lives in bucolic Vermont, dissatisfied with her father, whose own grief clashes with hers, finding understanding from a Palestinian American best friend, Yasmina, and feeling simultaneously repelled and attracted to a prospective boyfriend, Aaron, from a virulently Zionist family. The easy Vermont friendship and community among them shifts as Melody and Yasmina visit their respective families in Israel and Palestine, with Aaron participating via texting. 

Can characters this young rise to the level of maturity, insight, empathy that life in Israel and Palestine demand of them? Can they remain true to the people they aspired to being back home in Vermont?   The narrative arc on the novel is a voyage of discovery for Melody – discovery of self beyond the grief that continually threatens to smother her, discovery of the world, discovery of her own voice, discovery of her own ability to trust others after a devastating loss.  

Rothchild has an uncanny ability to honor clashing voices and values – she is pitch perfect in capturing adolescent moodiness and snark, the fearmongering that drives Zionist militancy, the real-time agony that corrodes the life of Palestinians living under Occupation. Lest this all sound like a novel too heavy to read, the story is told with the humor, sometimes just witty, sometimes sly, that teenagers bring to the conversation.  It is, above all, a novel about the courage we must find in ourselves to keep hope alive in the impossible world we have inherited.  I hope to meet Melody, Yasmina and Aaron again in a few years.” 

—Eve Spangler, Understanding Israel/Palestine: Race, Nation, and Human Rights in the Conflict, Associate Professor of Sociology, Boston College

Through Melody Sullivan’s journey to unearth her roots and to define her priorities in life, Alice Rothchild tells an intimate story of friendship and self-discovery, in which she debunks many myths related to the struggle in Palestine and the origins of Israel. This coming-of-age novel is an important read to understand the complexities of an ancient homeland and its people. 

—Ramzy Baroud, journalist, author of Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders & Intellectuals Speak Out

Finding Melody Sullivan reminds us that young people have within them the wisdom, instincts and desire to connect and heal across difference in ways that grownups can't figure out. By crossing borders against the grain, hateful tropes are upended to be sources of empowerment. This book reminds us that cross-religion relationships allow us deeper access to ourselves and each other--a timely reminder for a generation saddled with tikkun olam, repairing our broken world. 

—Rabbi Alissa Wise

The colors that Alice Rothchild uses to illustrate the various strands of life in Palestine/Israel are reminders of a stunning piece of Palestinian embroidery. Her intersections of life in Palestine/Israel are clear and vibrant. Through the relationships and experiences of three young people, she brilliantly illustrates the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, revealing to us the humanity behind the politics.  It takes the deep understanding of someone who is sensitive towards all the players in that conflict, to write such a touching story that would resonate with the younger generation – and possibly stimulate their questions. As a Palestinian and an educator, I would strongly recommend it to my friends, both young and old, and to teachers of the Social Sciences.  It is a heartwarming and truly revealing story.  

—Huda Giddens, Founder of the Giddens School, in Seattle, WA