Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Film producer Lending debuts with a wrenching story of love and displacement in Poland after the 1939 Nazi invasion. Reuven Berkovitz, 17, works for his father Lev in Krakow, making bespoke umbrellas with intricately carved handles. He's recently fallen in love with Zelda Abramovitch, who shares with him an appreciation for art and literature. His happiness ends when the Nazis invade, subjecting Jewish households to coal rationing, forcing Lev to sell his business, and assigning father and son to grueling labor repairing train tracks. Already terrorized by the Nazis' capricious acts of violence, Reuven gets another shock when he visits Zelda's family home and finds it occupied by strangers. He devotes himself to locating the Abramovitchs, but hasn't made any progress by the time he's forced to flee with his family to Russian-occupied eastern Poland, a grueling and catastrophic journey during which all the Berkovitzes but Reuven are killed by German soldiers. He's given shelter by a farmer before regaining the strength to resume his quest to find Zelda, which, after many more harrowing events, brings him back to Krakow. Lending eschews the sentimentality common to much recent Holocaust fiction, instead bringing the horrors of the period to visceral life with many scenes of graphic violence. It's not for the faint of heart. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Emmy-winning film producer and director Lending tells the harrowing tale of love's impact on the will to survive. Reuven is 17 years old when the Nazis invade his middle-class Polish town of Krakow, take control of his father's umbrella-making business, and force his family out of their apartment. Across town, his girlfriend Zelda, whom he plans to marry, and her family are packing to move to the countryside. As Reuven sees her family off, he vows to find and reconnect with her as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Reuven and his father endure arduous physical labor under the Nazis until the family can escape Krakow, where they will seek shelter in Przemyśl or die trying. In Przemyśl, Reuven is found and taken in by a local farmer, who gives him food and shelter as he heals from a gunshot wound and eventually puts Reuven to work in his fields. Still determined to find Zelda, Reuven eventually leaves the farm and faces perilous conditions as he returns to Krakow to search for the love of his life. VERDICT Fans of Heather Morris and Lisa Barr will be captivated by Lending's story of resilience and romance, a must-have for historical fiction sections.--Beth Brentlinger
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A young man and the people he loves struggle to survive the Nazi occupation of Poland. On September 1, 1939, the first day the bombs fall, Reuven Berkovitz and Zelda Abramovitch are in love and dream of a life together. Reuven helps his papa, Lev, an umbrella maker in Kraków who takes great pride in his work. But soon, German soldiers occupy Poland and force Papa to hand his shop over to a non-Jew. "Suddenly," the 17-year-old Reuven says, "Papa and I were no longer umbrella makers. We were nothing." The vise closes quickly on Jewish society, and "within nine months, the Germans had stolen our business, belongings, and identities." Then the Jews of Kraków are confined within heavily guarded walls while the rest of the city goes about its daily business. Reuven has one advantage: Due to his fair coloring, he can easily pass for gentile. But the two lovers are separated early on, and Reuven's unflinching desire to find Zelda is the engine that drives this compelling and heartbreaking debut novel. Once he witnesses the murder of his family, grief becomes his "constant companion....No matter how trapped [he] felt in [his] prison of melancholy, she was the one thing worth living for." For a while, he survives by working on a farm and pretending he's mute. Later, he's on a work crew assigned to smash headstones then dig up and burn decaying bodies in a Jewish cemetery so a road can be built through it. The calculated and often casual cruelty is painful to read, even for those familiar with the dark history of antisemitism and the Nazi thugocracy. Reuven's experiences feel so immediate that we want to cry with him. Will he ever find Zelda? Will they ever emerge together on the other side of the war? Will hope finally triumph over horror? A sympathetic Catholic man speaks to Reuven of a "memory now braided, like the bread, with love and grief." Author Lending's great-grandfather was an umbrella maker in Warsaw in the late 1800s and served as his inspiration. At once well told and ineffably sad. Read it but keep your tissues handy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
