'Absorbing fascinating arresting' Observer'Intensely moving luminous and rather magnificent'
The TimesIt was one of the most startling moments in the modern history of the City of London.
In 2011 the Occupy movement set up camp around St Paul's Cathedral. Giles Fraser who was
Canon Chancellor of the Cathedral gave them his support. It ended in disaster.This remarkable
book is the story of the personal crisis that followed and its surprising consequences. As
Giles Fraser found himself crushed between the forces of protest the needs of the church and
the implacable City of London he resigned and was plunged into depression.As his life fell
apart and he battled with ideas of suicide Fraser found himself by chance one day in Liverpool
outside the great Victorian synagogue once presided over by a distant ancestor. Suddenly he
realized that there was a great deal he did not know about himself about his relatives and
about his Jewish roots.Fraser calls this book 'a ghost story' and it is a book which is indeed
filled with many ghosts. His search into his family's Jewish past makes this both a fascinating
personal story and a wonderful piece of writing about the healing power of theology in
individual lives and across religious divides. It is a book about the deepest most ancient
elements in our culture and the most modern and personal. It is throughout alive with the
charm and intellectual vigour which have made Fraser such an admired and controversial preacher
and broadcaster.
