| Bed in Heaven Contributor(s): De Loo, Tessa (Author), Rilke, Ina (Translator) |
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ISBN: 1900850648 ISBN-13: 9781900850643 Publisher: Arcadia Books OUR PRICE: $11.66 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: June 2008 Annotation: On the day after her father's funeral, a respctable, middle-age woman reveals that she is intimately involved with a man who may be her stepbrother. The intricacies of how she has arrived at this moment unravel in this dramatic and searing tale of desire, love, guilt, and moral ambiguity. The secrets surrounding her Dutch mother and her Hungarian-Jewish father, as well as her Jewish ancestors in Budapest and Amsterdam are peeled away to reveal a shameful, cruel enigma at the core. The painful legacy of love and survival in time of war reverberates through the generations in this unflinching yet compassionate narrative. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Jewish - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | Historical - General |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.3" W x 8.3" (0.40 lbs) 128 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: A woman falls in love with a man who may or may not be her brother in this searing novel by de Loo (The Twins), which traces the effects of WWII on a fractured Hungarian Jewish family. Like de Loo's previous work, this gripping, pared-down narrative hinges on a stunning coincidence. When the novel opens, narrator Kata Roszavolgyi, in her 40s, has just buried her father and is now lying in bed with his son. Kata recalls growing up in Holland in the 1950s with a Dutch mother and Hungarian Jewish father, the latter a renowned composer. As a teenager she falls in love with another student named Stefan; as they grow closer, Kata learns that Stefan's mother, Ida Flinck, hid Kata's father from the Nazis during WWII. From there, the revelations pile up: Kata's father and Ida had become lovers while he hid in her house. To better protect him, Ida also began an affair with a Nazi officer. After the war, Kata's father abruptly left Ida. Soon afterward, Ida gave birth to Stefan. Is Stefan the son of the Nazi officer or the Hungarian Jew? As the novel moves toward a climactic encounter between Kata's father and Stefan, de Loo explores the legacy of the war-loss, guilt, families set adrift-for the generation of Europeans born in its wake. She handles the plot without melodrama, and her simple, deliberate prose and thoughtful compassion make this a virtuoso performance.--Publishers Weekly. |