TWILIGHT <i> by Elie Wiesel (Warner Books: $9.95) </i>

In this compelling, fragmented novel, Elie Wiesel chronicles the search of a once-religious man for meaning in a world where millions die in murder factories. Raphael is the only member of a loving Polish family to survive the Rovidok ghetto, where “the humble houses resembled weary faces, and the faces resembled broken stone, marked by misery, sculpted in the expectation of death.” Haunted by his survival, Raphael searches for a redeemer. He looks to the madman of the prewar Jewish community who claimed transcendent powers; to Pedro, the underground leader who brought him from Poland to safety in France; to the inhabitants of an American asylum who believe that they are Old Testament patriarchs. Like Job, Raphael questions God’s judgments: He demands to know why many were allowed to die and only a few to live. His answer comes not from the Voice Out of the Whirlwind, but from within himself, as he learns to accept the gift of life, regardless of the donor.