Imag­ine Neil Gaiman meets Fid­dler on the Roof. Or Sher­lock Holmes meets Fiv­el Goes West. Nei­ther com­par­i­son is exact­ly accu­rate, but they do help paint a pic­ture of When The Angels Left the Old Coun­try–a sweep­ing, engross­ing tale that fol­lows two mys­ti­cal crea­tures, an angel and a demon, as they jour­ney to Amer­i­ca from their small shtetl in the ear­ly twen­ti­eth century.

The pair makes the jour­ney for two rea­sons: our mis­chie­vous but lov­able demon, Lit­tle Ash, is los­ing all the young shtetl-dwellers as they immi­grate to Amer­i­ca, seek­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty and free­dom; and he is afraid that he will be dis­cov­ered in this ever-shrink­ing shtetl. But to get the Angel on board, he wraps this self­ish desire in an altru­is­tic one: Essie, a res­i­dent of the shtetl who recent­ly left for Amer­i­ca, hasn’t writ­ten back to her father in some time, and the fam­i­ly is wor­ried. Lit­tle Ash pro­pos­es that they jour­ney to find and help her, and off they go to the New World.

The Angel and Lit­tle Ash have been friends for lit­er­al ages, sit­ting in the back cor­ner of their syn­a­gogue and argu­ing about the Tal­mud. Theirs is a love that is as mys­ti­cal as it is ground­ed; as they make their way to Amer­i­ca, they strug­gle with jeal­ousy, mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and lone­li­ness, only to dis­cov­er the depths of their mutu­al love and affection.

Their jour­ney to Amer­i­ca is rife with ghosts, lost souls, and some­thing even more pedes­tri­an and thus more ter­ri­fy­ing: humans with pow­er and evil inten­tions. As they trav­el from War­saw through Ellis Island, all the way to Hes­ter Street, Lit­tle Ash and the Angel are test­ed in many ways – they must decide whom to trust, how to hide who they are, and, final­ly, how to find and help Essie and the many over­worked immi­grant Jews liv­ing on the Low­er East Side.

This nov­el by Sacha Lamb is both an action-packed adven­ture filled with dyb­buks, mys­tery, and mur­der, and also a sweet sto­ry of two beings dis­cov­er­ing their place in each other’s lives. It is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly a sto­ry of a woman who is try­ing to fig­ure out her iden­ti­ty, and of the lengths we will go to make sure our friends, fam­i­ly, and com­mu­ni­ty thrive in a hos­tile world. In the end, we will hope that we, too, have a lit­tle demon and angel, sit­ting in the back of the syn­a­gogue, ready to help us in a time of cri­sis or need. And who knows? They might be argu­ing there already, just wait­ing to be of service.

When the Angels Left the Old Coun­try is a phe­nom­e­nal sto­ry that explores gen­der iden­ti­ty and sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion while show­cas­ing the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty and the jour­ney one must take to tru­ly know themself.