Friday, August 6, 2010

Some More Reading at Esther Cottage

Displaced Persons, a novel



This books follows in the footsteps of four young persons who came of age following the holocaust. As they grow and marry and have children, this novel explores the loves and families that they lost, the loves and families that they later formed and how the experience of survivorhood shaped their future lives.

Coming to America gave them the foundation for lives that could heal, but none forgot their experiences that made each of them survivors. Haunted by those seminal backgrounds, they never really connect to their children. They want to shield their children from the horrors of hunger and separation that formed them before they were parents, but then could never understand the carefree natures of the children.

I found this book to be very different and in some way more haunting than other books about survivors. The characters were young and basically unformed when they experienced the years of war and then diaspora. Coming of age as a person without family and separated from loved ones made them view the world very differently. Writing a book separated from the event by 60 years makes a strong and subtle footprint on this book.

1 comments:

Barbara said...

This looks like something I would like to read. Thanks for the review.