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.