Roberta Silman

"The past is never dead, it's not even past," said Faulkner, and that's certainly true in this novel. Paul Berger's horrific adolescence, as a Jew in Nazi Berlin, has dominated and damaged his life in ways that he has never recognized. Among the casualties is his marriage. Despite this, it is his ex-wife whom he asks to accompany him, when the Berlin Wall falls and he decides that he must go back to Berlin. The novel traces Paul's revelation of his past to his wife, and its impact on their relationship. The novel kept me turning the pages, but it also irritated me. The pace is slow, the characters are somewhat one-dimensional, and the tone is heavy. Given the subject, that's probably inevitable.… (mere)