The Hidden Book
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From bestselling author Kirsty Manning comes a stunning novel based on a true story of clandestine courage in World War II as prisoners of war risk their lives to secure evidence of Nazi atrocities—and how one man concealed it for decades before passing it on to his family who struggle to understand their inherited legacy of trauma.
Austria, 1940s: Yugoslavian Nico Antonov is just one of more than 200,000 people imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp near the Danube River. Malnourished and forced into hard labor in a quarry, he still defies his captors any way he can. When fate brings him into contact with Lena Lang, a young woman living with her family in fear of their Nazi occupiers, he finds an ally.
SS officers have charged Spanish POW and photographer Mateo Baca with recording the events and prisoners of Mauthausen and to make five copies of the collected photo book for the Third Reich’s leaders. But Mateo also creates a sixth book to be smuggled out of the camp—where Nico entrusts Lena to hide it and protect their secret.
Australia, 1980s to present day: When teenager Hannah Campbell discovers her grandfather Nico’s mysterious photo album, filled with horrific visions of suffering and cruelty, the barbarities of World War II no longer feel like ancient history. Haunted by the images for years, as a university student and a married young mother, she pursues the truth behind her grandfather’s incarceration. As Hannah experiences love and loss in her own life, she comes to understand how the photos not only capture history but reflect a shared humanity that must never be forgotten.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Manning (The Jade Lily) offers an immersive narrative of a Holocaust survivor, his daughter, and his granddaughter. In 1987 Australia, 13-year-old Hannah Campbell becomes obsessed with a book of photos brought by her grandfather Nico from Yugoslavia for her mother, Roza. Before Roza hides the book from Hannah, she briefly glimpses images of prisoners at Mauthausen, the Austrian concentration camp Nico survived. Years later, after Hannah delivers her undergraduate honors thesis on Holocaust museums, she asks Roza to let her see the book, and is devastated when Roza says she destroyed it because she found the photos "ugly." A parallel narrative set in 1945 follows Mauthausen prisoner Mateo, who secretly makes extra copies of the photos he's ordered to take. He gives the copies to Nico to smuggle out of the camp, hoping to preserve evidence of the Nazis' crimes. Hannah's narrative then jumps to the present day, after she's weathered a divorce and resumed her PhD studies on European war history, with a focus on Mauthausen. Though Hannah and Roza don't always see eye to eye, Hannah learns to accept her mother's way of coping with their family's painful history. Manning nimbly interweaves the dramatic Mauthausen chapters with her nuanced family portrait and captures Hannah's sense of resolve to honor those who risked their lives during WWII. Readers will be riveted.
