Author: Jonathan Dunsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789657795002
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
On the dusty streets of post-war Tel Aviv, a crafty killer roams free... Israel, 1949 - Private detective Adam Lapid knows how it feels to lose everything. His whole family died in Auschwitz. He barely survived. Now he spends his nights haunted by nightmares and his days solving cases the police won't handle. Hired to find a missing boy, Adam thinks the case is hopeless. But he can't turn down a mother searching for her only child. What Adam doesn't realize is that this case will soon put him in mortal danger. For at the root of the mystery lies a double murder that has stayed unsolved for ten long years. Adam must untangle a web of lies and betrayal to get to the truth. And he'd better watch his back because some of the suspects are willing to kill to keep their dark secrets buried.
Ten Years Gone
Author: Jonathan Dunsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789657795002
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
On the dusty streets of post-war Tel Aviv, a crafty killer roams free... Israel, 1949 - Private detective Adam Lapid knows how it feels to lose everything. His whole family died in Auschwitz. He barely survived. Now he spends his nights haunted by nightmares and his days solving cases the police won't handle. Hired to find a missing boy, Adam thinks the case is hopeless. But he can't turn down a mother searching for her only child. What Adam doesn't realize is that this case will soon put him in mortal danger. For at the root of the mystery lies a double murder that has stayed unsolved for ten long years. Adam must untangle a web of lies and betrayal to get to the truth. And he'd better watch his back because some of the suspects are willing to kill to keep their dark secrets buried.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789657795002
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
On the dusty streets of post-war Tel Aviv, a crafty killer roams free... Israel, 1949 - Private detective Adam Lapid knows how it feels to lose everything. His whole family died in Auschwitz. He barely survived. Now he spends his nights haunted by nightmares and his days solving cases the police won't handle. Hired to find a missing boy, Adam thinks the case is hopeless. But he can't turn down a mother searching for her only child. What Adam doesn't realize is that this case will soon put him in mortal danger. For at the root of the mystery lies a double murder that has stayed unsolved for ten long years. Adam must untangle a web of lies and betrayal to get to the truth. And he'd better watch his back because some of the suspects are willing to kill to keep their dark secrets buried.
The Auschwitz Violinist
Author: Jonathan Dunsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789657795026
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
What if your friend was murdered and the police wouldn't investigate? Israel, 1950 - When private detective Adam Lapid runs into Yosef Kaplon on a crowded Tel Aviv street, he can hardly believe his eyes. The last time they met was in Auschwitz. They were prisoners together in the same barracks. Then one day, Kaplon was gone. Adam was sure he was dead. Soon after Kaplon tells Adam his remarkable story of survival, he's found dead in his apartment. The police say it was suicide, but Adam isn't so sure. He decides to investigate the matter himself. In a twisting case that takes him from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Adam must follow a winding trail of clues to uncover the shocking solution to the mystery. Did Kaplon really take his own life? Or has Adam stumbled on the trail of a serial killer who is hunting a unique sort of victim?
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789657795026
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
What if your friend was murdered and the police wouldn't investigate? Israel, 1950 - When private detective Adam Lapid runs into Yosef Kaplon on a crowded Tel Aviv street, he can hardly believe his eyes. The last time they met was in Auschwitz. They were prisoners together in the same barracks. Then one day, Kaplon was gone. Adam was sure he was dead. Soon after Kaplon tells Adam his remarkable story of survival, he's found dead in his apartment. The police say it was suicide, but Adam isn't so sure. He decides to investigate the matter himself. In a twisting case that takes him from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Adam must follow a winding trail of clues to uncover the shocking solution to the mystery. Did Kaplon really take his own life? Or has Adam stumbled on the trail of a serial killer who is hunting a unique sort of victim?
A Man Lies Dreaming
Author: Lavie Tidhar
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
ISBN: 1625674929
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
THE CULT NOVEL RETURNS! “The best book I read last year is A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar... It is so cleverly constructed and such a spectacular conclusion unfolds that you are going to take it all very seriously.” – Sting “Ambitious as hell” –Ian Rankin “An excellent novel” –Philip Kerr Since its original 2014 publication, A Man Lies Dreaming has been translated into multiple languages and gained a cult following for its dark humor, prescient politics and powerful exploration of the impossibility of fantasy. 1939: Adolf Hitler, fallen from power, seeks refuge in a London engulfed in the throes of a very British Fascism. Now eking a miserable living as a down-at-heels private eye and calling himself Wolf, he has no choice but to take on the case of a glamorous Jewish heiress whose sister went missing. It’s a decision Wolf will very shortly regret. For in another time and place a man lies dreaming: Shomer, once a Yiddish pulp writer, who dreams lurid tales of revenge in the hell that is Auschwitz. Prescient, darkly funny and wholly original, the award-winning A Man Lies Dreaming is a modern fable for our time that comes “crashing through the door of literature like Sam Spade with a .38 in his hand” (Guardian). PRAISE FOR LAVIE TIDHAR Winner – The World Fantasy Award Winner – The John W. Campbell Award Winner – The British Fantasy Award Winner – The Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize Winner – The Neukom Literary Arts Award Winner – The Kitschies Award Winner – The BSFA Award “Tidhar is a genius at conjuring realities that are just two steps to the left of our own.” –NPR “Tidhar changes genres with every outing, but his astounding talents guarantee something new and compelling no matter the story he tells.” –Library Journal “In a genre entirely of his own, and quite possibly a warped genius.” –Ian McDonald, author of River of Gods “Already staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.” –Locus “Tidhar is a master at taking concepts that really shouldn’t work and crafting them into something uniquely brilliant.” –GeekDad “He is perhaps the UK’s most literary speculative fiction writer.” –Strange Horizons “Like early Kurt Vonnegut... both writers seem to channel the same prankster glee that covers deep despair.” –Locus “Bears comparison with the best of Philip K Dick” –The Financial Times PRAISE FOR A MAN LIES DREAMING JERWOOD FICTION UNCOVERED PRIZE WINNER 2015 BRITISH FANTASY AWARD NOMINEE 2015 PREMIO ROMA NOMINEE 2016 GEFFEN PRIZE NOMINEE 2019 DUBLIN LITERATURE AWARD LONGLIST 2016 “Complex, elusive and intriguing” –The Jerusalem Post “Nasty, clever, waspish and witty... a brilliant and potent thought experiment” –The Sunday Herald “Bold and unnerving” –NPR “Damn good” –Jewish Book Council “A wholly original Holocaust story: as outlandish as it is poignant.” –Kirkus (starred review) “A vital, brilliant novel” –Barnes & Noble SFF Blog “Outstanding and moving” –Maxim Jakubowski, LoveReading.co.uk “Gripping... clever and thrilling work” –Buzz Magazine “In turns brutal, harrowing, heartbreaking and intriguing.... [an] unforgettable novel.” –Gulf Weekly “poetic & terrible... quite incredible” –Tor.com “A brilliant novel.” –Pop Verse 눀
Publisher: Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
ISBN: 1625674929
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
THE CULT NOVEL RETURNS! “The best book I read last year is A Man Lies Dreaming by Lavie Tidhar... It is so cleverly constructed and such a spectacular conclusion unfolds that you are going to take it all very seriously.” – Sting “Ambitious as hell” –Ian Rankin “An excellent novel” –Philip Kerr Since its original 2014 publication, A Man Lies Dreaming has been translated into multiple languages and gained a cult following for its dark humor, prescient politics and powerful exploration of the impossibility of fantasy. 1939: Adolf Hitler, fallen from power, seeks refuge in a London engulfed in the throes of a very British Fascism. Now eking a miserable living as a down-at-heels private eye and calling himself Wolf, he has no choice but to take on the case of a glamorous Jewish heiress whose sister went missing. It’s a decision Wolf will very shortly regret. For in another time and place a man lies dreaming: Shomer, once a Yiddish pulp writer, who dreams lurid tales of revenge in the hell that is Auschwitz. Prescient, darkly funny and wholly original, the award-winning A Man Lies Dreaming is a modern fable for our time that comes “crashing through the door of literature like Sam Spade with a .38 in his hand” (Guardian). PRAISE FOR LAVIE TIDHAR Winner – The World Fantasy Award Winner – The John W. Campbell Award Winner – The British Fantasy Award Winner – The Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize Winner – The Neukom Literary Arts Award Winner – The Kitschies Award Winner – The BSFA Award “Tidhar is a genius at conjuring realities that are just two steps to the left of our own.” –NPR “Tidhar changes genres with every outing, but his astounding talents guarantee something new and compelling no matter the story he tells.” –Library Journal “In a genre entirely of his own, and quite possibly a warped genius.” –Ian McDonald, author of River of Gods “Already staked a claim as the genre’s most interesting, most bold, and most accomplished writer.” –Locus “Tidhar is a master at taking concepts that really shouldn’t work and crafting them into something uniquely brilliant.” –GeekDad “He is perhaps the UK’s most literary speculative fiction writer.” –Strange Horizons “Like early Kurt Vonnegut... both writers seem to channel the same prankster glee that covers deep despair.” –Locus “Bears comparison with the best of Philip K Dick” –The Financial Times PRAISE FOR A MAN LIES DREAMING JERWOOD FICTION UNCOVERED PRIZE WINNER 2015 BRITISH FANTASY AWARD NOMINEE 2015 PREMIO ROMA NOMINEE 2016 GEFFEN PRIZE NOMINEE 2019 DUBLIN LITERATURE AWARD LONGLIST 2016 “Complex, elusive and intriguing” –The Jerusalem Post “Nasty, clever, waspish and witty... a brilliant and potent thought experiment” –The Sunday Herald “Bold and unnerving” –NPR “Damn good” –Jewish Book Council “A wholly original Holocaust story: as outlandish as it is poignant.” –Kirkus (starred review) “A vital, brilliant novel” –Barnes & Noble SFF Blog “Outstanding and moving” –Maxim Jakubowski, LoveReading.co.uk “Gripping... clever and thrilling work” –Buzz Magazine “In turns brutal, harrowing, heartbreaking and intriguing.... [an] unforgettable novel.” –Gulf Weekly “poetic & terrible... quite incredible” –Tor.com “A brilliant novel.” –Pop Verse 눀
What They Didn't Burn
Author: Mel Laytner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684631041
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 309
Book Description
What if you uncovered a Nazi paper trail that revealed your father to be a man very different from the quiet, introspective dad you knew . . . or thought you knew? Growing up, author Mel Laytner saw his father as a quintessential Type B: passive and conventional. As he uncovered documents the Nazis didn’t burn, however, another man emerged—a black market ringleader and wily camp survivor who made his own luck. The tattered papers also shed light on painful secrets his father took to his grave. Melding the intimacy of personal memoir with the rigors of investigative journalism, What They Didn’t Burn is a heartwarming, inspiring story of resilience and redemption. A story of how desperate survivors turned hopeful refugees rebuilt their shattered lives in America, all the while struggling with the lingering trauma that has impacted their children to this day.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1684631041
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 309
Book Description
What if you uncovered a Nazi paper trail that revealed your father to be a man very different from the quiet, introspective dad you knew . . . or thought you knew? Growing up, author Mel Laytner saw his father as a quintessential Type B: passive and conventional. As he uncovered documents the Nazis didn’t burn, however, another man emerged—a black market ringleader and wily camp survivor who made his own luck. The tattered papers also shed light on painful secrets his father took to his grave. Melding the intimacy of personal memoir with the rigors of investigative journalism, What They Didn’t Burn is a heartwarming, inspiring story of resilience and redemption. A story of how desperate survivors turned hopeful refugees rebuilt their shattered lives in America, all the while struggling with the lingering trauma that has impacted their children to this day.
Death March Escape
Author: Jack J. Hersch
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526740230
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
“Blending elements of memoir, history, and biography,” the son of a Holocaust survivor “portrays the horrifying reality of the . . . concentration camps” (Midwest Book Review). In June 1944, the Nazis locked eighteen-year-old Dave Hersch into a railroad boxcar and shipped him from his hometown of Dej, Hungary, to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, the harshest, cruelest camp in the Reich. After ten months in the granite mines of Mauthausen’s nearby sub-camp, Gusen, he weighed less than 80lbs, nothing but skin and bones. Somehow surviving the relentless horrors of these two brutal camps, as Allied forces drew near Dave was forced to join a death march to Gunskirchen Concentration Camp, over thirty miles away. Soon after the start of the march, and more dead than alive, Dave summoned a burst of energy he did not know he had and escaped. Quickly recaptured, he managed to avoid being killed by the guards. Put on another death march a few days later, he achieved the impossible: he escaped again. Using only his father’s words for guidance, Jack Hersch takes us along as he flies to Europe to learn the secrets his father never told of his time in the camps. Beginning in the verdant hills of his father’s Hungarian hometown, we accompany Jack’s every step as he describes the unimaginable: what his father must have seen and felt while struggling to survive in the most abominable places on earth. “This deeply personal and extremely informative portrait of a man of indomitable will to live, as Hersch emphasizes, reminds us of why we must never forget nor trivialize the full, shocking truth about the Holocaust.”—Booklist
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1526740230
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
“Blending elements of memoir, history, and biography,” the son of a Holocaust survivor “portrays the horrifying reality of the . . . concentration camps” (Midwest Book Review). In June 1944, the Nazis locked eighteen-year-old Dave Hersch into a railroad boxcar and shipped him from his hometown of Dej, Hungary, to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, the harshest, cruelest camp in the Reich. After ten months in the granite mines of Mauthausen’s nearby sub-camp, Gusen, he weighed less than 80lbs, nothing but skin and bones. Somehow surviving the relentless horrors of these two brutal camps, as Allied forces drew near Dave was forced to join a death march to Gunskirchen Concentration Camp, over thirty miles away. Soon after the start of the march, and more dead than alive, Dave summoned a burst of energy he did not know he had and escaped. Quickly recaptured, he managed to avoid being killed by the guards. Put on another death march a few days later, he achieved the impossible: he escaped again. Using only his father’s words for guidance, Jack Hersch takes us along as he flies to Europe to learn the secrets his father never told of his time in the camps. Beginning in the verdant hills of his father’s Hungarian hometown, we accompany Jack’s every step as he describes the unimaginable: what his father must have seen and felt while struggling to survive in the most abominable places on earth. “This deeply personal and extremely informative portrait of a man of indomitable will to live, as Hersch emphasizes, reminds us of why we must never forget nor trivialize the full, shocking truth about the Holocaust.”—Booklist
The Lampshade
Author: Mark Jacobson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781416566281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Few growing up in the aftermath of World War II will ever forget the horrifying reports that Nazi concentration camp doctors had removed the skin of prison ers to make common, everyday lampshades. In The Lampshade, bestselling journalist Mark Jacobson tells the story of how he came into possession of one of these awful objects, and of his search to establish the origin, and larger meaning, of what can only be described as an icon of terror. From Hurricane Katrina–ravaged New Orleans to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to the Buchenwald concentration camp to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, almost everything Jacobson uncovers about the lampshade is contradictory, mysterious, shot through with legend and specious information. Through interviews with forensic experts, famous Holocaust scholars (and deniers), Buchenwald survivors and liberators, and New Orleans thieves and cops, Jacobson gradually comes to see the lampshade as a ghostly illuminator of his own existential status as a Jew, and to understand exactly what that means in the context of human responsibility. One question looms as his search progresses: what to do with the lampshade—this unsettling thing that used to be someone?
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 9781416566281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Few growing up in the aftermath of World War II will ever forget the horrifying reports that Nazi concentration camp doctors had removed the skin of prison ers to make common, everyday lampshades. In The Lampshade, bestselling journalist Mark Jacobson tells the story of how he came into possession of one of these awful objects, and of his search to establish the origin, and larger meaning, of what can only be described as an icon of terror. From Hurricane Katrina–ravaged New Orleans to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to the Buchenwald concentration camp to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, almost everything Jacobson uncovers about the lampshade is contradictory, mysterious, shot through with legend and specious information. Through interviews with forensic experts, famous Holocaust scholars (and deniers), Buchenwald survivors and liberators, and New Orleans thieves and cops, Jacobson gradually comes to see the lampshade as a ghostly illuminator of his own existential status as a Jew, and to understand exactly what that means in the context of human responsibility. One question looms as his search progresses: what to do with the lampshade—this unsettling thing that used to be someone?
Fatherland
Author: Robert Harris
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061006629
Category : Adventure stories
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
What would have happened if Hitler had won World War II?
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061006629
Category : Adventure stories
Languages : en
Pages : 404
Book Description
What would have happened if Hitler had won World War II?
The Auschwitz Protocol
Author: Jack Carnegie
Publisher: Jack Carnegie
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
Retired US Detective Emil Janowitz lied to his wife for nearly forty years. Having lost his entire family whilst an inmate of Auschwitz-Birkenau it was simply easier on his soul to invent a past than face up to the demons buried deep inside. Life was good, but then the mail arrived bringing a letter which would result in a voyage of discovery, denunciation and confrontation with the past. Life is a journey, history should not be forgotten, the evil still exists.
Publisher: Jack Carnegie
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
Retired US Detective Emil Janowitz lied to his wife for nearly forty years. Having lost his entire family whilst an inmate of Auschwitz-Birkenau it was simply easier on his soul to invent a past than face up to the demons buried deep inside. Life was good, but then the mail arrived bringing a letter which would result in a voyage of discovery, denunciation and confrontation with the past. Life is a journey, history should not be forgotten, the evil still exists.
The Auschwitz Escape
Author: Joel C. Rosenberg
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
ISBN: 1414336241
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
Joel C. Rosenberg delivers a spellbinding novel about one of the darkest times in human history.
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
ISBN: 1414336241
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 481
Book Description
Joel C. Rosenberg delivers a spellbinding novel about one of the darkest times in human history.
The Book of Dirt
Author: Bram Presser
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1922253073
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
‘An immense work of love and anger, a book Bram Presser was born to write.’ Joan London They chose not to speak and now they are gone...What’s left to fill the silence is no longer theirs. This is my story, woven from the threads of rumour and legend. Jakub Rand flees his village for Prague, only to find himself trapped by the Nazi occupation. Deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he is forced to sort through Jewish books for a so-called Museum of the Extinct Race. Hidden among the rare texts is a tattered prayer book, hollow inside, containing a small pile of dirt. Back in the city, Františka Roubíčková picks over the embers of her failed marriage, despairing of her conversion to Judaism. When the Nazis summon her two eldest daughters for transport, she must sacrifice everything to save the girls from certain death. Decades later, Bram Presser embarks on a quest to find the truth behind the stories his family built around these remarkable survivors. The Book of Dirt is a completely original novel about love, family secrets, and Jewish myths. And it is a heart-warming story about a grandson’s devotion to the power of storytelling and his family’s legacy. Bram Presser was born in Melbourne in 1976. His stories have appeared in Best Australian Stories, Award Winning Australian Writing, The Sleepers Almanac and Higher Arc. His 2017 debut novel, The Book of Dirt, won the 2018 Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction in the US National Jewish Book Awards, the 2018 Voss Literary Prize and three awards in the 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards: the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and The People’s Choice Award. ‘The lyrical, impassioned and culturally rich prose of The Book of Dirt, and its moral force, bears echoes of such great Jewish writers as Franz Kafka (Presser inherited his grandfather’s copy of The Trial), Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Cynthia Ozick...It is a major book, and one for the times: while I was reading it, neo-Nazis in America brought fatal violence to Charlottesville, and, in Melbourne, neo-Nazis placed posters in schools calling for the killing of Jews to be legalised...The Book of Dirt is a courageous work, as necessary for us to read as it was for Presser to write.’ Saturday Paper ‘A beautiful literary mind.’ A.S. Patrić ‘Meet Bram Presser, aged five, smoking a cigarette with his grandmother in Prague. Meet Jakub Rand, one of the Jews chosen to assemble the Nazi’s Museum of the Extinct Race. Such details, like lightning flashes, illuminate this audacious work about the author’s search for the grandfather he loved but hardly knew. Working in the wake of writers like Modiano and Safran Foer, Presser brilliantly shows how fresh facts can derail old truths, how fiction can amplify memory. A smart and tender meditation on who we become when we attempt to survive survival.’ Mireille Juchau ‘The Book of Dirt is a grandson’s tender act of devotion, the product of a quest to rescue family voices from the silence, to bear witness, drawing on legend, journey and history, and shaped by extraordinary storytelling.’ Arnold Zable ‘A remarkable tale of Holocaust survival, love and genealogical sleuthing...A beautiful tale that will stay with the reader long after the book’s end.’ Books+Publishing ‘It’s hard not to be captured from the opening epigraph...[A] magnificent ode to all that is lost.’ Longin to Be ‘It is difficult to convey the breadth and nuance of this extraordinary work. It is a book about how history is made—and about who is allowed the privilege to remake it. There are echoes here of Sebald’s biting honesty and Chabon’s long and rewarding vignettes. An absolute pleasure to read.’ Readings ‘As in Sebald’s prose narratives, Presser’s novel inhabits and the dynamic region between fiction and non-fiction.’ Australian Book Review ‘An impressive and captivating story of remembrance, a journey into the past for the sake of deciphering our present.’ Dasa Drndic ‘In The Book of Dirt the fractured lines of memory create a gripping story of survival and love.’ Leah Kaminsky ‘I found Bram Presser’s The Book of Dirt impossible to forget. Penetrating, soulful, and surprisingly welcoming, it reminded me of my own ancestors and how easy it is to sidestep the past.’ Barry Scott, Australian Book Review, 2017 Publisher Picks ‘Presser blurs the boundaries of fact and fiction in a compelling way...A wonderful and original book, told in rich, lyrically beautiful prose that is laden with history and cultural meaning.’ Good Reading ‘A combination of homage, mystery, family history and a sepia-toned love story...The Book of Dirt is magnificent.’ ANZ LitLovers ‘A heartfelt and original attempt to bridge the ever-growing gaps between history, memory and silence...Its heart beats so earnestly, and so loud...What Presser has produced is a meditation on the ethics of storytelling, of the duties we owe to the people whose stories we tell, and to the people whose stories we don’t.’ Australian ‘Always surprising and beautifully complex, and both deft and sensitive in its handling of its intertwined narratives and materials. It is an incredibly affecting book, one that lingers long after reading—and a remarkably assured debut.’ Age ‘A gripping tale of survival and an absorbing novelisation of his family’s extraordinary lives...Presser fills in the gaps in his grandfather’s story with vivid character studies; together with poignant black and white snapshots, he brings them evocatively to life. His poetic narrative is a perfect foil for the silences of his forbears.’ Toowoomba Chronicle ‘The Book of Dirt is both a loving, honest portrayal of lives that would have been erased, and an incorporation of the broader lessons of their experience into contemporary mythology. It keeps the discussion about trauma, memory, and intergenerational acts of transfer alive for those generations that follow, that risk forgetting. It is a potent achievement for a debut novel.’ Sydney Review of Books
Publisher: Text Publishing
ISBN: 1922253073
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
‘An immense work of love and anger, a book Bram Presser was born to write.’ Joan London They chose not to speak and now they are gone...What’s left to fill the silence is no longer theirs. This is my story, woven from the threads of rumour and legend. Jakub Rand flees his village for Prague, only to find himself trapped by the Nazi occupation. Deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he is forced to sort through Jewish books for a so-called Museum of the Extinct Race. Hidden among the rare texts is a tattered prayer book, hollow inside, containing a small pile of dirt. Back in the city, Františka Roubíčková picks over the embers of her failed marriage, despairing of her conversion to Judaism. When the Nazis summon her two eldest daughters for transport, she must sacrifice everything to save the girls from certain death. Decades later, Bram Presser embarks on a quest to find the truth behind the stories his family built around these remarkable survivors. The Book of Dirt is a completely original novel about love, family secrets, and Jewish myths. And it is a heart-warming story about a grandson’s devotion to the power of storytelling and his family’s legacy. Bram Presser was born in Melbourne in 1976. His stories have appeared in Best Australian Stories, Award Winning Australian Writing, The Sleepers Almanac and Higher Arc. His 2017 debut novel, The Book of Dirt, won the 2018 Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction in the US National Jewish Book Awards, the 2018 Voss Literary Prize and three awards in the 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards: the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing and The People’s Choice Award. ‘The lyrical, impassioned and culturally rich prose of The Book of Dirt, and its moral force, bears echoes of such great Jewish writers as Franz Kafka (Presser inherited his grandfather’s copy of The Trial), Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, Isaac Bashevis Singer and Cynthia Ozick...It is a major book, and one for the times: while I was reading it, neo-Nazis in America brought fatal violence to Charlottesville, and, in Melbourne, neo-Nazis placed posters in schools calling for the killing of Jews to be legalised...The Book of Dirt is a courageous work, as necessary for us to read as it was for Presser to write.’ Saturday Paper ‘A beautiful literary mind.’ A.S. Patrić ‘Meet Bram Presser, aged five, smoking a cigarette with his grandmother in Prague. Meet Jakub Rand, one of the Jews chosen to assemble the Nazi’s Museum of the Extinct Race. Such details, like lightning flashes, illuminate this audacious work about the author’s search for the grandfather he loved but hardly knew. Working in the wake of writers like Modiano and Safran Foer, Presser brilliantly shows how fresh facts can derail old truths, how fiction can amplify memory. A smart and tender meditation on who we become when we attempt to survive survival.’ Mireille Juchau ‘The Book of Dirt is a grandson’s tender act of devotion, the product of a quest to rescue family voices from the silence, to bear witness, drawing on legend, journey and history, and shaped by extraordinary storytelling.’ Arnold Zable ‘A remarkable tale of Holocaust survival, love and genealogical sleuthing...A beautiful tale that will stay with the reader long after the book’s end.’ Books+Publishing ‘It’s hard not to be captured from the opening epigraph...[A] magnificent ode to all that is lost.’ Longin to Be ‘It is difficult to convey the breadth and nuance of this extraordinary work. It is a book about how history is made—and about who is allowed the privilege to remake it. There are echoes here of Sebald’s biting honesty and Chabon’s long and rewarding vignettes. An absolute pleasure to read.’ Readings ‘As in Sebald’s prose narratives, Presser’s novel inhabits and the dynamic region between fiction and non-fiction.’ Australian Book Review ‘An impressive and captivating story of remembrance, a journey into the past for the sake of deciphering our present.’ Dasa Drndic ‘In The Book of Dirt the fractured lines of memory create a gripping story of survival and love.’ Leah Kaminsky ‘I found Bram Presser’s The Book of Dirt impossible to forget. Penetrating, soulful, and surprisingly welcoming, it reminded me of my own ancestors and how easy it is to sidestep the past.’ Barry Scott, Australian Book Review, 2017 Publisher Picks ‘Presser blurs the boundaries of fact and fiction in a compelling way...A wonderful and original book, told in rich, lyrically beautiful prose that is laden with history and cultural meaning.’ Good Reading ‘A combination of homage, mystery, family history and a sepia-toned love story...The Book of Dirt is magnificent.’ ANZ LitLovers ‘A heartfelt and original attempt to bridge the ever-growing gaps between history, memory and silence...Its heart beats so earnestly, and so loud...What Presser has produced is a meditation on the ethics of storytelling, of the duties we owe to the people whose stories we tell, and to the people whose stories we don’t.’ Australian ‘Always surprising and beautifully complex, and both deft and sensitive in its handling of its intertwined narratives and materials. It is an incredibly affecting book, one that lingers long after reading—and a remarkably assured debut.’ Age ‘A gripping tale of survival and an absorbing novelisation of his family’s extraordinary lives...Presser fills in the gaps in his grandfather’s story with vivid character studies; together with poignant black and white snapshots, he brings them evocatively to life. His poetic narrative is a perfect foil for the silences of his forbears.’ Toowoomba Chronicle ‘The Book of Dirt is both a loving, honest portrayal of lives that would have been erased, and an incorporation of the broader lessons of their experience into contemporary mythology. It keeps the discussion about trauma, memory, and intergenerational acts of transfer alive for those generations that follow, that risk forgetting. It is a potent achievement for a debut novel.’ Sydney Review of Books