To Save a Life

Larry Zuckerman’s grandparents spoke Yiddish around him whenever they wished to protect their privacy—and their impassioned, expressive tone made him want to know what he was missing. In paying homage to their generation and mother tongue, To Save a Life expresses his love for other times and places. His previous novel, Lonely Are the Brave (Cennan, 2023), portrays a World War I hero turned at-home father in a Washington State logging town. Larry’s nonfiction includes The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World, which was excerpted in the New York Times and won an award in the United Kingdom, and The Rape of Belgium: The Untold Story of World War I, which reflects his fascination with that tragic era. He has appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition with Renée Montagne and delivered a keynote address at the 2009 World Potato Congress in Christchurch, New Zealand. He lives in Seattle.