The Archivists

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY APR 10, 2023

In Kalotay's luminous collection (after the novel Blue Hours), characters seek out sources of hope while dealing with trauma and upheaval. "Relativity" follows Robert, a Boston social worker assigned to help Holocaust survivors claim restitution from the German government, among them a 74-year-old Swiss man energized by the chance to "stick it to the Germans." Another client, a 99-year-old woman, sensing correctly that Robert has marital problems, finds purpose by preparing Robert a meal. The title story comprises a series of linked vignettes in which a Holocaust survivor celebrates her birthday with her children and grandchildren, a young ballet student struggles to learn an antiwar piece titled Forced March, and a team of researchers study the effects of intergenerational trauma on Holocaust survivors and their descendants. In "Communicable," set during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, a woman named Marlo invites her new boyfriend, Leland, to stay with her to avoid the isolation that seems to have affected her colleagues' mental health, despite the couple's differences and Marlo's foreboding observation that Leland's eyes, which used to seem "dreamy," now look "severe" when he wears a mask. There's real power in these stories, and it comes from Kalotay's perceptive writing and ability to wring narrative power from the smart use of understatement. This writer is at the top of her game.