Sarah Goldman

Sarah Goldman is a beautiful story about a love affair between a university professor and one of his students. It’s heart-warming at times and heart-wrenching at other times, and worth every minute. Available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook/kindle. Purchase here. Also available from all major booksellers.

Excerpt:
When I got home, I performed my regular routine; hung up my coat, went to the bathroom, and things of that nature. I lived alone, so needless to say, I made my own food and ran my own errands. I didn’t have anyone to share my life with except my two boys, whom I didn’t see much. One had a family of his own up in Vermont. He had a very pregnant wife who wanted to live near her folks. The other was trying to make a go of his acting career in LA. I missed them both and would have given anything to see them more often, or in the case of my actor son, see him at all.

Later that afternoon, I started getting my work together for the coming week of class. Looking in various places for misplaced papers, books, notepads, and writing implements, I noticed a small piece of paper tucked in my school bag. I knew it wasn’t anything of mine, since I don’t own any purple notepads. I picked it up and read it. It was a note from Sarah that simply read, ‘Thank you’ with her initials written below. She undoubtedly snuck it in at the snack lounge when I wasn’t looking. I immediately thought of how nice that was. I like how some people, mostly women from my experience, seem to have the good sense to do nice things like that. I would never in a million years have thought of leaving a thank you note to someone, lest they might consider me a changed individual from my aloofness; a personal attribute, I was proud to be gifted with. Maybe, that’s what makes people who they are. You expect things like that from some people and expect the opposite from others. I felt a little guilt when I threw the note away, but really, what would I do with it? I would acknowledge it next time I saw her. That thought made me feel a little less guilty. I have no doubt a woman like Sarah would probably have cherished it for years; kept it in some little trinket box that had sentimental value because it was passed down to her from her great grandmother or something. Sometimes I wish I had those sentiments.

Five star review from Readers’ Favorite:

Reviewed By Steven Robson for Readers’ Favorite

Sarah Goldman by Réal Carpentier is a beautiful exposé of the human condition, delving into the extremes of total love confronted by absolute evil. Dr. Raymond Dina’s life is irreversibly changed when he meets Sarah Goldman, one of his psychology students, during a fifteen-week semester at New York University. Like most things in life, they have no idea where their journey will take them, but one thing is certain; neither could anticipate the ultimate fate that awaits. In a perverse way, a form of neo-Nazi hatred comes into their life to inflict a type of horror that mirrors the type meted out during the Second World War; a war with painful ties to Sarah. The fallout will leave you angry and despairing of the paucity of empathy held by some so-called human beings.

I found reading Réal Carpentier’s Sarah Goldman to be a moving and very thought-provoking experience. It shows just how love can bloom when you least expect it in a real and wonderful way, without regard for what “society” may consider proper or correct. The characters were well defined, unique, and evoked genuine emotions. I particularly enjoyed the thread of uncertainty that ran through the plot; a desire to know the future of these innocent people, deserving of happiness in a sometimes cruel world. As for the character of Sean Russell, words can’t describe how unbelievable it is to say that people like this still exist in our world. It almost seems an injustice that he leads to a climax, which is not only shocking, in some ways expected, but in no way easy to accept.