Anna Mitgutsch paints the poignant portrait of Max Berman, a successful New York restoration architect who spends much of his life seeking to restore both the memory and possession of his mother’s ancestral home, the house his family left behind in their flight from Austria in his early youth. Along his emotional and physical journey, Max encounters a variegated cast of characters, each of whom has been indelibly marked by the experience of the Holocaust.
Through Max and his various foils, Mitgutsch thoughtfully explores the impact of the Holocaust on Jew and non-Jew alike in Eastern Europe, Israel, and the United States. As he struggles to find meaning in his own life, Max is able to restore his house, but he cannot restore the life that once was in his native Austria. David Dollenmayer’s masterful translation is both poetic and graceful, giving a melancholy lilt to Mitgutsch’s prose.
The book includes a glossary of Hebrew, Yiddish and German terms.