Children of Pithiviers
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Book Overview
From the author of Cracks comes a novel of the horrors and betrayals of the Holocaust and afterwards as 18-year-old Deirdre discovers the diary of two Jewish girls kept hidden from the Nazis. This description may be from another edition of this product.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:1590512065
ISBN13:9781590512067
Release Date:June 2006
Publisher:Other Press (NY)
Length:204 Pages
Weight:0.65 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 5.8" x 7.9"
Customer Reviews
3 ratings
Subtle and not, this book will make you think
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 20 years ago
The writing is merely superb but the thinking is more than that. A short novel with a long agenda and complicated acting out. This novel is entirely finest kind and full enough of itself that satisfaction is at least as complicated. This is a book I will be giving to my friends.
A brave, powerful book
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago
This book is a complex and chilling investigation of the darkest human impulses. The writing is exquisite, but more importantly, Kohler makes us ask ourselves the hard questions--which is how I define moral fiction. I can't imagine it was Kohler's intention to put the seduction of Deirdre on a scale with the tragedy of the children of Pithiviers, but rather, to make us look at the nature of corruption and compliance, to force us to look in the scary places--and this she has done brilliantly.
On Morality
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
This is a book for people who don't need to be spoonfed lessons in morality. Rather than drawing comparisons between Diedre's summer in Pithiviers and the horrors of the Holocaust, I thought the author's point was that the children imprisoned and gassed by the Nazi's clearly are the more tragic victims. And I admire the fact that she didn't think she needed to explain that to me. While Diedre almost willingly participates in her own exploitation at the hands of her hosts, the children who came before her had no options at all. Yet by showing us Diedre's more contemporary story, Kohler is able to lead us to the more horrific history of this region of France and suggest that while the two horrors are not equal, they exist on an unfortunate spectrum of abuse that continues to exist to this day. This is really quite brave and daring, and the writing is exquisite.
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