The Tin Drum meets Life Is Beautiful in this tragicomic, one-of-a-kind novel.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“A child's-eye view makes delusion and hypocrisy shockingly stark.” — The Guardian
“The Jewish mother Gabi, a tempest of energy that exhausts while it saves...Sara, the burdened, responsible child...the local Nazi official, more ambitious than vicious...the housekeeper, obstinate and loyal...Christopher New brings them to life.” — Literary Review
“Christopher New is equally at home in both Asia and Europe. His eastern novels range over Hong Kong, China, India and Egypt during the rise and fall of the British presence in the Middle and Far East, while The Kaminsky Cure is set in Austria during the Third Reich.” — Eastern Economic Review
“In his mixture of sophistication and inexperience, the narrator of The Kaminsky Cure owes a debt to the famously idiosyncratic narrator of Martin Amis’s 1991 novel Time’s Arrow, which is told backwards by the soul of a Nazi doctor – a soul that wishes to exonerate itself of any knowledge of atrocity… this novel’s consistent viewpoint and wry tone make it surprisingly engaging.” — Jewish Quarterly
“Beautifully written…poignant…memorable. The author brings to life the characters in a truly commanding manner and the writing is sharp, clear and humorous, despite the decidedly unfunny subject matter." — Australia Jewish News
“With "Life is beautiful" Roberto Benigni gave a cinematic answer to the question [whether one can laugh about the Holocaust]. In literature it could be Christopher New.” — Deutschland Radio
"This beautifully rendered novel of WWII, “seen through a child’s eye, makes delusion and hypocrisy shockingly stark.
The Jewish mother Gabi, a tempest of energy that exhausts while it saves...Sara, the burdened, responsible child...the local Nazi official, more ambitious than vicious...the housekeeper, obstinate and loyal...Christopher New brings them to life.
Beautifully written…poignant…memorable. The author brings to life the characters in a truly commanding manner and the writing is sharp, clear and humorous, despite the decidedly unfunny subject matter."
In his mixture of sophistication and inexperience, the narrator of The Kaminsky Cure owes a debt to the famously idiosyncratic narrator of Martin Amis’s 1991 novel Time’s Arrow, which is told backwards by the soul of a Nazi doctor – a soul that wishes to exonerate itself of any knowledge of atrocity… this novel’s consistent viewpoint and wry tone make it surprisingly engaging.
With "Life is beautiful" Roberto Benigni gave a cinematic answer to the question [whether one can laugh about the Holocaust]. In literature it could be Christopher New.
Christopher New is equally at home in both Asia and Europe. His eastern novels range over Hong Kong, China, India and Egypt during the rise and fall of the British presence in the Middle and Far East, while The Kaminsky Cure is set in Austria during the Third Reich.
★ 2016-05-03
If Dave Chapelle were a 10-year-old in Austria during World War II…. We've gotten used to laughing at the brutal absurdities of modern racism, but Third Reich comedy is still rare. British author and philosopher New (Gage Street Courtesan, 2013) proves it can be done. Here, the relentless eye for hypocrisy belongs to the youngest of four children born to an Aryan pastor and his Jewish wife. The Brinkmann family has been booted by the brownshirts out of the fatherland and into Austria shortly before that country, too, is taken over by Hitler. Through the eyes of a wise child growing up in the ever darkening shadow of the Final Solution, the most notable thing about the Nazi system is its utter ludicrousness. The kids can go into stores their mother can't; one day the family is deemed unfit to own a Saint Bernard, pet bunnies, or a wireless radio; finally the children are yanked out of school, only to be ordered the next year to return. Perhaps this anti-Semitism won't last, suggests one character, reasoning that the Führer is too intelligent not to see what a mistake it is. "Has she read Mein Kampf?" wonders our narrator. "Has anyone? Can anyone?" Of a buxom blonde biology teacher who measures her pupils' skulls with calipers, he comments, "Race is to Frau Professor Forster what sex is to a nymphomaniac—she just can't get enough of it." Of a trip to Berlin: "The train leaves on time (what else are Führers for?). But the optimism, euphemisms, and know-nothingism around him finally wear thin as the war escalates and more and more people disappear. One person who doesn't have the wool pulled over her eyes is the narrator's mother, Gabi, whose youthful conversion to Christianity hasn't erased her Jewish-mother qualities, including a stubborn, single-minded focus on her children's education. Nor will it protect her from Hitler's plans for her race. Fortunately, the story does not end there. The Tin Drum meets Life Is Beautiful in this tragicomic, one-of-a-kind novel.
