In her debut novel The Scrapbook, award-winning biographer Heather Clark moves with elegance and insight into fiction, crafting a deeply affecting story that bridges youthful passion and historical reckoning. Set primarily in 1996–1997, the novel follows Anna, a Harvard literature student, who falls into a heady, all-consuming relationship with Christoph, a German architecture student whose striking intellect and enigmatic charm both seduce and unsettle.

Their romance unfolds in clipped, impressionistic prose—dialogue eschewing quotation marks, lending a dreamlike, intimate cadence. But beneath their intellectual flirtations and shared obsessions with German art, literature, and philosophy, runs a darker thread: the legacy of their grandfathers’ wartime experiences.

When Anna follows Christoph to Germany, the novel shifts. The prose deepens, expanding into more detailed, haunting passages as the couple visits sites scarred by war—Nuremberg, Hamburg, and Dachau. Christoph offers perspectives Anna has never encountered, prompting both a personal and historical awakening.

Clark, inspired by her discovery of her own grandfather’s wartime scrapbook—including photos from Dachau—infuses the novel with the rigour of a historian and the empathy of a novelist. While the dialogue occasionally serves an expository purpose, it does not diminish the emotional resonance of the central love story.

The Scrapbook is a tender, intelligent novel that dares to ask what it means to inherit trauma, and whether love can reconcile histories that remain unresolved. A compelling debut that lingers long after the final page.

It's the mid-90s, and when Anna meets Christoph, it feels *right*. Their relationship cannot be easy—he's German, she's American, and to make it work they'll have to span an ocean. But their conversations are deep and the attraction is there and this is a relationship unlike any other that she's had. And: their grandfathers fought on opposing sides of WWII, and with Anna trying to understand her grandfather's experience better, her relationship with Christoph feels like something that can make it tangible. And if Christoph doesn't seem as invested as she is, well. They can make it work, surely. It's fate, or something like that.

"The Scrapbook" takes place mostly in the 90s (Anna and Christoph) and partly in the 40s (their grandfathers). Christoph holds fast to the story that one of his grandfathers joined the resistance, while acknowledging that someday he'll have to find out—and face—what else that grandfather did in the war; Anna's grandfather has a more straightforward trajectory, but not one without its horrors. His scrapbook, the one the book is named after, is based on Clark's own grandfather's scrapbook, so there's an interesting based-on-a-true-story element to part of the plot.

It was kind of surprising to me how focused Anna and Christoph are on WWII—while I may be misremembering, it is not clear to me whether Anna has any real understanding of what happened in Germany between 1945 and 1990. To be fair, she is a product of the American education system (my own American history classes never made it past reconstruction, and I never took a world history class), and even now WWII continues to get a lot more press than the DDR. It's so clear, early on in the book, that their intense conversations about war and trauma are not really sustainable; they know each other mostly in short, intense bursts, the sort of brief time frames where people can hold on to the image they want to project rather than letting the more...maybe not the more honest parts, but the more prevalent parts of themselves through. I guess by the end of the book I was still wondering a bit who Christoph is outside the limited parts Anna sees of him. Not the best fit for me, but I'm glad to have read this (I'm always interested in contemporary fiction about post-war and post-DDR Germany).

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.

Gorgeous writing and storytelling. Anna falls in love with Christoph. She goes to visit him in Germany and he takes her sightseeing, as they discuss literature, WWII, their grandfathers, etc. Christoph seems closed off about certain topics (including his grandfather’s role in WWII), but Anna is determined to be with him.

This was really lovely - the pacing worked well, as did the interspersed chapters featuring Jack and Hans. As much as I was rooting for Anna to break up with Christoph, I understood her choices. Highly recommended!

Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

For a short book of 250 pages, it still manages to pack a huge punch. With its emotional storylines, rich history, compelling familial themes and characters, The Scrapbook is a novel that I won’t be forgetting any time soon. Haunting in its delivery with achingly beautiful prose, I would recommend it to readers far and wide. Thank you Pantheon Books for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.

An excellent read for any and all readers! Author comes at you with both barrels and knocks you out of your shoes! Great job fleshing out all the characters. I give this book FIVE stars! Definitely recommend!