"Blending history on an epic scale with folklore and with the most deeply human realism, Our Narrow Hiding Places is a war story--and a love story--as powerful in its particulars as in its sweep. Jansma sets his sights on the largest of historical concerns, which have (as history tends to) become current again: war as a force of inhumanity, the many smaller brutalities that occur in its wake, and the many unrecorded generosities and acts of heroism, too. This novel is a magnificent anthem to the magic of survival in all its forms." -- Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson and The Garden

"Our Narrow Hiding Places is a masterpiece, a luminous and gorgeously written story that explores the power and complexity of memory, offering a profound meditation on the resilience of the human spirit and the intimate spaces where family secrets are harbored. This is a novel I'll be returning to again and again in the years to come, a novel I'll be recommending to everyone I know." -- Andrew Porter, author of The Disappeared

"A vivid, devastating account of Holland's Hunger Winter and a complex, compassionate tale of human resilience. The reverberations of trauma through multiple generations is as much Kristopher Jansma's subject here as is the endurance of family love. Our Narrow Hiding Places moves seamlessly between the beaches of wartime Holland and the present day beach towns of the Jersey Shore. It gives voice to the sibilant whispering of eels as believably as it depicts a young man's matter-of-fact recollections of a troubled father. A multi-layered novel about memory, community, suffering, and tenacity, told with imagination and grace." -- Alice McDermott, author of Absolution and The Ninth Hour