When Leah Lax was asked to write an opera to cel­e­brate local immi­grants, she began by spend­ing a year lis­ten­ing to accounts of upheaval, migra­tion, and arrival told to her in con­fi­dence by peo­ple new to this coun­try from around the globe. She felt she had dis­cov­ered Amer­i­ca, found its great beat­ing heart.

In inter­ludes between the pow­er­ful sto­ries in Not From Here, Leah uncov­ers the lost his­to­ry of her Jew­ish fam­i­ly and finds a larg­er con­text for her own sto­ry. ​“In a way,” she writes, ​“we Amer­i­cans are all immi­grants.”

​“A mas­ter­work! Bril­liant, pro­found, heart-shat­ter­ing, hope­ful — I couldn’t breathe! Not From Here is full of sto­ries of peo­ple who hang onto hope, who will not give up strug­gling for what could be, inter­spersed with Leah’s own extra­or­di­nary jour­ney. This is the kind of book that leaves you for­ev­er changed.” —Car­o­line Leav­itt, NYTimes best­selling author

​“Leah Lax under­stands that every­one has a sto­ry and a secret. To expe­ri­ence this our­selves, we have only to read her utter­ly irre­sistible Not From Here.” —Glo­ria Steinem