Bear Season, by Bernie Hafeli

ISBN 978-0982595657
February, 2013
156 pages

About this book:
It’s 1951, and Czeslaw Wierzbicki is on the lookout for a hero after losing his father in WWII. With his uncle who can’t seem to hold a job for more than a few months, Czeslaw sets out on a life-changing journey that takes him from Detroit to Edinburgh, in hopes of meeting Wojtek, the legendary Polish soldier bear.

About the author:
Bernie Hafeli has been published in The Berkeley Fiction Review, 34th Parallel, The Rejected Quarterly, and elsewhere.  He holds an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco.  Bear Season is his first novella.

Praise for Bear Season:

• “Through specific and precise detail Hafeli creates a complex, rich, engaging world . . . Hafeli’s pacing is spot on and his scenes are well-developed.” –Nina Schuyler, author of The Trasnlator: A Novel and The Painting
• “Near the end of Bernie Hafeli’s Bear Season, a character remarks that ‘fleeting moments of grace . . . need to be collected and nourished.’ To read the story of Czeslaw and his Uncle Izzy’s journey to meet the  soldier bear Wojtek is to enter into precisely one of those moments.”  –Ian Chung, editor of Eunoia Review
• “The narration here is remarkable in that it finds the perfect balance between tenderness and toughness, longing and understanding: all of which builds to the story’s unexpected but palpable resolve.”  –Jen Knox, author of To Begin Again
• “Evoking shades of John Irving, Bear Season is a heartfelt and emotionally intelligent tale that’s part grail quest, part coming of age story, and completely engaging. I’m not exaggerating when I say I couldn’t put it down.” –Marc Schuster, author of The Grievers