In turn of the century Eastern Europe, a brother and sister have been chosen to guard an ancient cemetery of Jewish martyrs situated on an isolated mountain. The endless snows protect them from the pogroms and plagues that rage in the world below, but that same protective blanket cuts them off from their people and tradition. Escape--from loneliness, from wavering piety, and from the burgeoning desire they feel for one another--becomes impossible.

A parable for our times, by the writer whom Irving Howe called "one of the best novelists alive," Unto the Soul lays bare the deepest stirrings of religious feeling and despair within the human soul.