The Scent of Violets by Joe Regenbogen

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Mark Twain once said, “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heels that crushed it.” The Scent of Violets explores this subject by asking if it is possible to forgive such a reprehensible crime as a murder motivated by antisemitism.

The story unfolds in 1977 when a bomb violently explodes on the front porch of a home in Bloomington, Illinois. The house belongs to two Holocaust survivors, Benjamin and Miriam Abramowicz, who first met and fell in love in the Sobibor extermination camp during World War Two (Their story is based on the experience of Itzhak and Eda Lichtman). The older couple recently moved downstate from Skokie to be near their daughter, Rachel, who has just taken a position as a history professor at Illinois State University. Unfortunately, Rachel’s blossoming romance with Grant Parker, a reporter with the local newspaper, created the link that unknowingly placed her parents at grave risk.

Grant’s teenage son, Michael, has recently come under the sway of Frank Collin (another real person), who is the head of the American Nazi Party in Chicago and the center of the famous Skokie First Amendment Supreme Court case. When Michael learns about the presence of Holocaust survivors in his community through an article written by his father, he decides to garner attention for his cause by building the bomb that alters the trajectory of everyone’s lives. Once Michael’s crime is discovered, The Scent of Violets examines the timeless questions of redemption and forgiveness.

Year first published: 2025