This flip book is comprised of two novellas:
In Sickness and In Health - Lily had epilepsy as a child, so her most cherished goal has always been to be “normal”. By age 45 she has a “normal” life, including a family, friends, and an artistic career, and no one, not even her husband, knows the truth about her past. But now some cartoons she drew threaten to reveal her childhood secret and destroy her marriage and everything she has worked so hard for. A moving novella about shame, secrets, disabilities, and the limits and power of love.

Yom Kippur in a Gym – Five strangers at a Yom Kippur service in a gym are struggling with personal crises. Lucy can’t accept her husband’s Parkinson’s diagnosis. Ira, rejected by his lover, is planning suicide. Rachel worries about losing her job. Ezra is tormented by a mistake that ruined his career. Tom contemplates severing contact with his sisters. Then a medical emergency unexpectedly throws these five strangers together, and in one hour all their lives are changed in ways they would never have believed possible.

Dr. Nora Gold is a prize-winning author and the founder and editor-in-chief of the prestigious literary journal Jewish Fiction .net, which has readers in 140 countries. Gold’s first book, Marrow and Other Stories, won a Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award and was praised by Alice Munro. Her second book, Fields of Exile, won the inaugural Canadian Jewish Literary Award for best novel. The Dead Man received a Canada Council for the Arts translation grant and was published in Hebrew. 18: Jewish Stories Translated from 18 Languages, an anthology of translated works, was praised by Publishers Weekly, Cynthia Ozick, and Dara Horn. In Sickness and In Health/Yom Kippur in a Gym (two novellas) will be published on March 1, 2024 with Guernica.

Nora Gold's profile page

Nora Gold’s two novellas are full of wry humour and unusual perspectives, all wonderfully conveyed.

Norman Ravvin, author of Who Gets In: An Immigration Story, professor of literature at Concordia University

With an astute eye, Nora Gold writes with depth and emotion. Her novellas, Yom Kippur in a Gymand In Sickness and In Health, delve the inner workings of the human heart. Her writing reminds us that we're all fallible beings, and her characters are living, breathing entities that reach out and touch our souls.

Faye Kellerman is the author of the best-selling Decker/Lazarus mystery series; her latest book is The Hunt

In this excellent book, the writing always thrusts, compelling readers to see themselves in the characters’ frailties of body and soul and to ask themselves the questions of conscience and mortality that these novellas pose with eloquence.

Nomi Eve, author of The Family Orchard and Henna House and Director of the Drexel MFA in Creative Writing

[Gold's] storytelling prowess and keen understanding of the human condition make these novellas emotionally resonant and thought-provoking, offering readers a glimpse into the intricate tapestry of life's challenges and the potential for transformative connections ... I would recommend In Sickness and In Health/Yom Kippur in a Gym for fans of accomplished literary novellas everywhere.

Readers' Favourite

What is so wonderful and compelling about both these novellas is the deep compassion and understanding that Gold has for her characters. With insight and a keen sense of the conflicted, complex, vulnerable, hopeful and yes, beautiful condition of being fully human, both works do the necessary and inspiring work of making vivid what it is to be immersed in self, in consciousness, in relationships, in life itself.

Gary Barwin, award-winning author of Yiddish for Pirates and Nothing the Same Everything Haunted