The Forgetting River

The unexpected and moving story of an American journalist who works to uncover her familys long-buried Jewish ancestry in Spain.. Raised a Catholic in California New York Times journalist Doreen Carvajal is shocked when she discovers that her background may actually be connected to conversos from Inquisition-era Spain: Jews who were forced to renounce their faith and convert to Christianity or face torture and death. With vivid childhood memories of Sunday sermons catechism and the rosary Carvajal travels to the centuries-old Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera to investigate her lineage and recover her familys original religious heritage.. In Arcos Carvajal comes to realize that fear remains a legacy of the Inquisition along with the cryptic messages left by its victims. Back at her childhood home in California she uncovers papers documenting a family of Carvajals who were burned at the stake in the 16th-century territory of Mexico. Could the authors family history be linked to the hidden history of Arcos? And could the unfortunate Carvajals have been her ancestors?. As she strives to find proof that her family had been forced to convert to Christianity six hundred years ago Carvajal comes to understand that the past flows like a river through timeand that while the truth might be submerged it is never truly lost.