The Lost Family
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- 29,00 kr
Publisher Description
'A dazzling novel of great compassion' Laura Moriarty
'An extraordinary read, the kind of book that makes you sob and smile' Tatiana de Rosnay
'Blum plumbs the depths of loss and love in this exquisite page-turner' People
In 1960s Manhattan, patrons flock to Masha's to savor its brisket Wellington and impeccable service, and to admire its dashing owner and head chef, Peter Rashkin. With his movie-star good looks and tragic past, Peter, a survivor of Auschwitz, is the most eligible bachelor in town. But he has resigned himself to a solitary life. Running Masha's consumes him, as does the terrible guilt of having survived the horrors of a Nazi death camp while his wife, Masha - the restaurant's namesake - and two young daughters perished.
Then exquisitely beautiful June Bouquet, an up-and-coming model, appears at the restaurant, piercing Peter's guard. Though she is twenty years his junior, the two begin a passionate, whirlwind courtship. When June unexpectedly becomes pregnant, Peter proposes, believing that beginning a new family with the woman he loves will allow him to let go of the atrocities of the past, even though he cannot forget all that he has lost. But over the next twenty years, the indelible sadness of those memories will overshadow Peter, his new wife, June, and their daughter, Elsbeth, transforming them in heartbreaking and unexpected ways.
The Lost Family is a charming, funny, and elegantly bittersweet study of the repercussions of loss and love that spans a generation, from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is a vivid portrait of marriage, family, and the haunting grief of World War II.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Blum (Those Who Save Us) examines the second family of a Holocaust survivor his restless, ex-supermodel wife and their troubled teenage daughter in this crisp vision of how seemingly random choices test love, loyalty, and survival. Peter is haunted by his failure to save his wife and twin daughters from death in Nazi Germany. Years later, in 1965, he rises to success as a celebrated chef in New York City with the help of illegal funds from cousin Sol. June gives up her career as a model to marry Peter and later raise their only child, Elsbeth, but then begins to doubt her suburban life and the emotionally distant Peter amid the women's liberation movement in 1975. Elsbeth, though pampered and privileged, throws herself into the drug-fueled, punk-populated New York City art world in 1985 to find the recognition and love she craves, risking her life through starvation to be the muse of photographer Julian. Blum avoids the sap of happy endings and easy resolutions in this perfect encapsulation of the changing times and turbulence of mid- and late-20th-century America. Her story of a family struggling to tell the truth to one another and to themselves is bolstered by memorable characters, to whom readers will become attached.
