Nightfather

by Carl Friedman

Overview

The legacy of the Holocaust is passed on to a young girl through her father's stories in this celebrated novel. "When I was in the camp," her father's stories always begin. Although she lives in the everyday world of school and friends, a daughter is compelled by love to enter her father's harrowing world of hunger, death, and survival in the concentration camp. In a moving Afterword, the author sets the historical context for the novel and speaks directly about her own father, upon whom the novel is based. "An extraordinary novel written with passion, lucidity, and restraint" (The Forward).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780892552108
Publisher:	Persea Books
Publication date:	08/17/2002
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	146
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.30(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	680L (what's this?)

Editorial Reviews

Dutch poet and journalist Friedman's first novel is a harrowing and deeply moving account of three siblings' struggle to understand their father, a Holocaust survivor plagued by nightmares and horrific memories. ``I've had camp,'' Ephraim explains, referring to his ordeal as if it were the flu or measles, hoping to make it more comprehensible to his sullen preteen son, Max, to the younger and more innocent Simon and to his unnamed eight-year-old daughter, who narrates the story in a terse, precocious, lyrical voice. Eventually, Ephraim relives his camp experience with adult candor, telling his offspring of gassings, slave labor, torture and sadistic beatings, of how he murdered a camp boss and of his miraculous liberation and reunion with Bette, his wife and the children's mother. Friedman, whose father was a Holocaust survivor, manages despite all odds to tell her story with a light touch, showing keen insight into the emotional confusion and moral growth that the siblings undergo as they strive to fathom absolute evil and how it has scarred their father. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Like the splendid Sunken Red, written by fellow Dutch author Jeroen Brouwers, Friedman's work represents autobiographical fiction told through revelation of what internees suffered during World War II and the effect on their children. While Brouwers's subjects are Dutch families interned by the Japanese in the former Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia), Friedman's are European Jews in concentration camps. Using a novel approach, Friedman takes as protagonist the young daughter of a camp survivor who incessantly speaks about his wartime experiences. Thus, as Elie Wiesel suggests in an accompanying quote, she "remember[s] things that [she] has not lived." This revelation of atrocities leaves an indelible imprint on the children (there are also two sons), as the most ordinary experiences in their lives-eating dinner, playing soccer, attending religious services-trigger their father's camp memories and prompt yet another story about camp horrors and survival. But, as the reader soon learns, it's one thing to be enlightened by a story, another to be harnessed with a burden. Recommended for Holocaust collections.-Olivia Opello, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.

Library Journal

YA-Through the first-person narration of the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Friedman presents a book that will resonate for readers of all ages, backgrounds, and interests. Each short chapter shows the horrors of Nazi atrocities and the subsequent struggle to make sense of why they happened. That the consequences of the Holocaust continue to manifest themselves is a primary lesson to be learned here-the loss of childhood is a circular occurrence in this family. At the same time, the vignettes point out how little we can understand of the agony suffered in concentration camps. In one chapter, somewhat reminiscent of Anne Frank, the narrator's father tells his tale of survival to his children. His loss gradually becomes their loss, and all joy is dampened. Sadness and helplessness are constant. Although the book is grim and relentlessly intense, the analysis and thought that it offers will provide new insights into the Holocaust and its victims.-Richard Klein, Edison High School, Fairfax County, VA

School Library Journal