Aharon Appelfeld captivates the reader immediately. This is the story of an Israeli whose parents were hiding during the holocaust. He goes to a small town in Poland, near Krakow, to see what he can find out about his family and he does find people who knew them among other things. Through this exploration we learn a great deal good and bad about the non=Jewish Poles during the holocaust and after the holocaust. I highly recommend this book.

The late Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld, I had heard, was known for the mystical and philosophical nature of his many novels. I had not read any of them until now and I now understand what others have described about his writing.
The story, vaguely set sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s, moves back and forth between what he experiences, what he imagines and how the two mingle in his mind. He meets people who knew, or knew of his parents and his late sister, one of whom, incredibly, begins to recall the Yiddish of her former neighbors at the same time he equally miraculously becomes fluent in Polish. This requires some suspension of disbelief, but the author's prose makes it easy to go on this semi-mystical ride. I enjoyed the book, which kept my interest throughout.

This is a tough book to read. It's emotional, shocking, and takes a lot from the reader. It took me some time to get used to the polish names. Yaakov is a complex character, but I know he's going to appeal to a lot of gentlemen out there. I liked the humanity throughout this book that against hope, emerged victorious at the end.

If you enjoy reading historical fiction set outside America, you'll like this.

This is a very special book. It meanders along and you wonder where it is going, but then you hit a certain line and you have to put the book down and think about it. Ponder it. Wonder what the significance is and how it speaks to today's world. Does it? Maybe, yes, maybe no, but as you read and ponder you'll find yourself immersed in a small Polish town where there once were Jews, but now there are not. Maybe.
This book digs into the Holocaust and why the Jews were so hated. Or loved. And the story itself is about both love and hate on many levels. I rarely re-read a book, but this is one that I could totally savor again. Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I absolutely loved it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the amazing publisher for the ARC of this title! I am so grateful to be auto-approved for this title!
I look forward to reading and reviewing. More to come!