"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
Fall 2003
Volume I,
issue 2
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"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." |
Fall 2003 |
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Nicki Leone earned her B.A. in Russian and Middle Eastern History from Boston College in 1988. One of the founders of The Cape Fear Crime Festival, an annual book festival for mystery readers and writers, she currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers Network, as well as on the Advisory Board of the Southeastern Booksellers Association. Ms. Leone writes book reviews for a number of magazines, and is an on-air book reviewer and commentator. This review of The German Money is a transcript of a recent broadcast on public radio station WHQR 91.3 FM. You can hear Ms. Leone's review at http://www.galleone.com/audio/gmony2.mp3. Direct correspondence to Nicki Leone or to editor@lifeloom.com. |
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The German Money
I know summer is drawing to a close here because yesterday I saw
my first sulfur yellow butterfly—an unmistakable sign—and also
because lately people have been seeking advice on choosing books for
their book groups. Many book clubs take the summer off, and return
tanned and energized and with the kids in school, in September.
I am careful about the books that I recommend to reading groups. It isn’t enough that the book be a "good read" (easily enjoyed and as easily forgotten). People join book clubs for a variety of reasons, sometimes social ones, and often because they are starved for a decent conversation. But the conversation will only be as good as the book, so there isn’t any point in choosing something easy.
I agree with Kafka when he says “A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us," especially when it comes to book club reading. If you don’t find your world rocked and your assumptions challenged, then what will there be to discuss? Nothing kills a discussion faster than a book that everyone likes,
but no one can complain about.
My favorite book to recommend to book groups this month is a new novel called The German Money by Lev Raphael. The author, an
award-winning writer and a book reviewer for The Detroit Free Press, is perhaps best known for his wickedly satirical mystery novels. But this book is
something entirely different: The German Money — in Paul's family it refers to money paid by the German government as reparations to his cold and enigmatic mother, a survivor of the Holocaust. When his mother suddenly dies, Paul is shocked and bewildered to find she has left him the entire amount of "the German money". Shocked, because there is over a million dollars. Bewildered, because it was left to him with no explanation, even though Paul hadn't spoken to his mother in years, unlike his brother
Simon and sister Dina, who don’t receive a dime.
This is an intense novel that insists its reader fall into Paul's world — a world filled with secrets and silences, where the past was too painful to accept and was ruthlessly expunged. The world, in fact, of many children of Holocaust survivors. His mother filled Paul’s childhood with a disastrous
string of furious, inexplicable outbursts, and equally furious, implacable rejections. He was a child astray in his mother’s emotional minefield. It was inevitable that he would be maimed.
The book is written entirely in Paul’s point of view—the author never breaks ranks from the first person, a stylistic feat in itself. But this is no gentle reminiscence by a friendly narrator. The story is relentless and Paul’s anguish and turmoil inescapable. Readers will know what it is to be an angry and embittered young Jewish man who has spent the better part of his life running from something that happened over fifty years ago, to a completely different person. Even a million dollars can’t make it all worth while.
There is enough here for hours of good discussion, and a few places to indulge in a truly heated argument. Do children always have to pay for the sins of their parents? Can something as ephemeral as money ever hope to compensate the victims of the Holocaust? And most importantly, is forgiveness possible?
The German Money wields a sharp axe at a vast frozen sea, indeed.
Copyright 2003 by Nicki Leone
The Web Mystery Magazine is an on-line quarterly journal dedicated to investigating the mysterious genre in print, in film, and in real-life. The Web welcomes well-researched, well-written
articles and reviews. Writers are invited to send letters and inquiries to editor@lifeloom.com. "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Feeling like a reluctant prodigal son, Paul endures the simmering hostility of his sister and the quiet grief of his brother, while he tries to come to terms with this troubling and mysterious legacy. But the more he finds out, the more he starts to have doubts about his mother's death. Rose was a bitter woman but healthy one, with no reason to die of a sudden heart attack. So what really happened? And why don’t his brother and sister want to know?
Sir Walter Scott