Library for the War-Wounded

by Monika Helfer

Overview

The internationally bestselling novel-a daughter's portrait of her WWII veteran father, assembled from shards of memory.

We called him Vati, Dad. Not Papa. He thought it sounded modern. He wanted to present himself to us, and through us, as a man in tune with the modern age. A man who could be read as having a different past.

Inspired by the author's family history, Library for the War-Wounded transports readers to the aftermath of World War II, uncovering the life of Helfer's father, Josef. Born with the stigma of illegitimacy, he found solace in books, and his education was eventually funded by the Catholic Church. Drafted into the Wehrmacht, he witnessed the horrors of the Eastern Front and returned from the war an amputee. He married his nurse and brought his family to the high, idyllic slopes of the Austrian Alps, where he took a position as manager of a convalescent home for war-wounded.

Josef was a man of many mysteries. To his daughter Monika, none was greater than his obsession with the home's unlikely and remarkable library, his great treasure and comfort as the country barrels away from the memory of war. He will stop at nothing to save it-even when it tears apart his family.

Beautifully restrained and compressed, Library for the War-Wounded turns lived experience into great literature by confronting the universal question: Can we ever truly know our parents?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639732395
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	01/16/2024
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	523,642
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Monika Helfer grew up in Vorarlberg, Austria. Her novels include the internationally bestselling, Schubart Prize-winning Last House Before the Mountain and Löwenherz (Lionheart). She has been awarded the Bodensee and Solothurn Literature Prizes, the Johann Beer Prize, and the Austrian Cross of Honor. She lives in Hohenems, Austria.

Gillian Davidson is a literary translator based in London. Monika Helfer's Last House Before the Mountain was her first published work of translation.

Editorial Reviews

10/30/2023

Helfer’s touching second installment in a trilogy inspired by her family history (after Last House Before the Mountain) focuses on her WWII veteran father and his passion for books. Josef Helfer is conscripted straight out of finishing school into the German army near the end of the war. After he loses a leg due to frostbite, he marries his nurse, Grete. The couple settle in the Austrian mountains and raise four children. Monika, the second-oldest, narrates. As a young girl, Monika doesn’t understand Josef’s dedication to the extensive library he’s established in the Convalescent Home for the War-wounded, which he manages and where his family lives. After an official from the association that owns the home tells Josef that it will be remodeled and the library converted into two rooms for lodging, Josef fears losing his books. He removes the most valued volumes and hides them, thus risking his job and the family’s stability. Helfer’s introspective remembrances of her childhood, complete with anecdotal narratives of her relatives and glimpses of the love shared by her parents, breathe life into the characters’ simple moments of joy amid times of hardship. Helfer’s fans will appreciate her searching perspective on her father. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Helfer's introspective remembrances of her childhood, complete with anecdotal narratives of her relatives and glimpses of the love shared by her parents, breathe life into the characters' simple moments of joy amid times of hardship. Helfer's fans will appreciate her searching perspective on her father.” —Publishers Weekly

“A clear portrait of the unrelenting, continuing legacy of damage suffered by those permanently maimed by war . . . Deciphering the forces that informed her father's decisions, as well as his various disabilities, leads Helfer to examine their generalized effects on her family as well in this sobering account. Helfer's unrelieved portrait of a suffering soul wastes nothing on superfluous embellishment.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Beautifully rendered in English by Davidson, Helfer's novel stirringly blurs the line between memoir and fiction, concluding with painful honesty, confiding her doubts about how well she knew her father. Fans of family sagas will appreciate Helfer's multifaceted tribute to the father who inspired her love of reading.” —Booklist

“A poignant, captivating, beautifully woven family saga. As honest as Elena Ferrante, with the folkloric intensity of Téa Obreht.” —Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE EXILES, A PIECE OF THE WORLD, and ORPHAN TRAIN on LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN

“Beautiful and heartbreaking, and readers will fall in love with Maria. I absolutely loved it.” —Monica Ali, New York Times bestselling author of UNTOLD STORY and LOVE MARRIAGE on LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN

“In Helfer's spare, subtle English-language debut, an Austrian family is transformed during WWI . . . Helfer brings a great deal of nuance to her exploration of female desire and vulnerability, male power, and community division. This should win the author wider recognition in the U.S.” —Publishers Weekly on LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN

“What distinguishes Last House Before the Mountain from a hundred other family stories is its charm . . . it confides in the reader intimately.” —The Observer on LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN

“A masterclass in literary compression. In just a short span of pages, Helfer brings a whole world of wonder, loss and deep, deep longing to indelible life. How lucky we are that her work is finally available in English.” —Laird Hunt, author of National Book Award Finalist ZORRIE on LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN

“Generations of family secrets and unrequited love are braided with restraint and compassion in this moving story of a woman's longing. Drawing from the wreckage of war and poverty, Monika Helfer expertly weaves this entrancing tale of one woman's struggle to build a life of love and dignity.” —Tsering Yangzom Lama, author of Scotiabank Giller Prize Finalist WE MEASURE THE EARTH WITH OUR BODIES on LAST HOUSE BEFORE THE MOUNTAIN

From the Publisher

2023-10-21
An impressive library represents all that’s good in life to one Austrian World War II survivor who struggles with the aftermath of the war and the horrific injuries he sustained while fighting on the Eastern Front.

Austrian writer Helfer explores the life of her father, Josef, in this work of autofiction. The child of a single mother—a maid in the household of his biological father—Josef is a bright child who grows up in poverty and, initially, without educational advantages. A local builder allows him access to his own home library, and Josef’s lifelong love affair with books and libraries begins. Upon his return from the war, Josef eventually secures a position as the manager of an Alpine convalescent home for those disabled in battle. Central to his attachment to the facility is his love of its comprehensive library, which leads to seemingly impetuous decisions about its future (as well as his own). Helfer’s unvarnished recitation of the circumstances her family endures in the wake of her father’s acts of desperation provides a clear portrait of the unrelenting, continuing legacy of damage suffered by those permanently maimed by war. Helfer addresses the reader directly at several points, and the process of researching and writing her account of Josef’s experiences is a visible part and parcel of the work. (Her stepmother, for example, wishes that Helfer would wait until after her death to write the account.) Deciphering the forces that informed her father’s decisions, as well as his various disabilities, leads Helfer to examine their generalized effects on her family as well in this sobering account.

Helfer’s unrelieved portrait of a suffering soul wastes nothing on superfluous embellishment.

Kirkus Reviews