Returning

Returning is a searingly honest family saga that follows Nicholas Lemann's investigation into his family's past, beginning with his great-great-grandfather Jacob Lemann, who emigrated from Germany in the 1830s.

Growing up in New Orleans as the son of German Jews in a world of gilded privilege, Lemann explores the contradictions of being Jewish in the South and his family's struggle to belong in an antisemitic society.

The memoir chronicles Lemann's own transformation as he rejects the assimilated secular Judaism of his upbringing and, through his relationship with journalist Judith Shulevitz, embraces a more intense connection to Judaism, ultimately choosing to raise his children in a Jewish world.

Written with the keen eye of a journalist, the perspective of a historian, and the love of a grandchild, the book presents provisional answers to questions about Jewish identity and the complications of belonging.