May 2023 Indie Next List
“This family saga, about a mysterious postcard received decades after WWII, plunges a daughter and her mother into the search for the truth and their roots. I have never read a book so well-written, so engaging, so poignant, so real.”
— Marianne Reiner, La Playa Books, San Diego, CA
Description
A BEST BOOK OF 2023
TIME Magazine・NPR・Library Journal・The Globe and Mail・Lilith・Forward Magazine・Toronto Star・The New Yorker
"A testament to the power of imagination and an investigation of empathy."--Vogue
"Stunning."--Leslie Camhi, The New Yorker
"A can't-miss novel."--Chicago Review of Books
"Compelling."--The Washington Examiner
Anne Berest's The Postcard is among the most acclaimed and beloved French novels of recent years. It is at once a gripping investigation into family trauma, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and a vivid portrait of twentieth-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life.
January, 2003. Together with the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Op ra Garnier in Paris. On the back, the names of Anne Berest's maternal great-grandparents, Ephra m and Emma, and their children, No mie and Jacques--all killed at Auschwitz.
Years after the postcard is delivered, the heroine of this novel is moved to discover who sent it and why. What emerges is a moving saga of a family devastated by the travails of the twentieth century and partly restored through the power of storytelling.