Impossible Love - Hardcover

Frister, Roman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297645919 ISBN 13: 9780297645917

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002

Synopsis

Some years ago Roman Frister came across an old suitcase in a Tel Aviv flea market; it contained documents and photos pertaining to several generations of the Levy family - Jews living in Prussia from around the middle of the 19th century up until the beginning of the Second World War. He managed to trace some of the descendants and with their help has written their history - a detailed and involving narrative set against the turbulent backdrop of Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a touching and fascinating portrait of the changing fortunes of one family which exemplified the Jewish experience at the time. We follow them through the hard times and the happier ones, in business, and in their personal lives. This predominantly blond and blue-eyed family who were unstintingly patriotic were constantly victimised purely on account of their religion. As they struggle for acceptance against all the odds, the inevitable and familiar course of German history creeps up on them. It is miraculous that the ten members of the youngest generation all managed to escape and are to this day scattered throughout Israel, England and America. Like THE CAP this is a very beautifully written and meticulously structured book. As history is interwoven with Frister's interpretation of the Levy family's experiences, this intellectually engaging book - in truth a historical document - reads like an epic novel.

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Review:

We've set a press date for this of 18 July and reviews are now coming in: "This book fell out of a battered cardboard suitcase. It was part of a junk dealer's stock in a flea market at Jaffa and was bulging with papers and photographs recording in immense detail the history of a German-Jewish family from World War II back to Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. Enough human interest here in the hands of a clever author like Roman Frister to make what reads like an absorbing historical novel. But the theme that makes it relevant to us as f

From the Back Cover:

A documentary account as gripping as any novel - the history of the Jewish family Levy and their 'impossible love' for Germany. 'Roman Frister is a master of the written word, a magician who produces powerful images.' German Radio It is a unique and yet archetypal story of the rise and destruction of German Jewry; of the search for a compromise between German patriotism and Jewish identity; of the impossible love that bound the German Jews to their homeland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0297645919
• ISBN 13: 9780297645917
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368