Yoel Blum is a well-known Israeli writer who returns to
Amsterdam, the city of his birth, to research a novel about his past. We know that his mother Sonia escaped the
Holocaust with her daughter Nettie, and Yoel, who has discovered that Sonia
apparently left another child behind.
Some reviewers have called this a family mystery, but the mystery is not
so much about what happened, as that seemed obvious to me, but how it happens. Yoel has prodded his sister for details after
his mother’s death, and her explanation fuels Yoel’s imagination in the writing
of his novel, although we readers are enlightened only by the text of Yoel’s
novel as it progresses. He rents a small
hotel room in the neighborhood where Sonia lived so that he can immerse himself
both physically and emotionally in her story.
This book, then, is actually two stories—Sonia’s and Yoel’s—with almost
seamless switching between the two. Sonia’s
life deteriorates little by little into a harrowing existence as she endeavors
to save her family from a demise that she can hardly believe is coming. A
revelation at the end explains why Yoel’s mother was so secretive about the
past, but that was not particularly surprising, either. What makes this book special is how personal the
story feels. Sonia’s heartbreak as she
wrestles with impossible decisions is palpable and so gut-wrenching that I was
immensely glad to know from the beginning that she survives. This book is a true reminder that the
experiences of Sonia’s family, grappling with life and death choices regarding
the welfare of themselves and their children, were not unique. I cannot begin to imagine what their lives
were like, but this book provides a small window into that horror.
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