The Absent Moon: A Memoir of a Short Childhood and a Long Depression - Softcover

Schwarcz, Luiz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593490746 ISBN 13: 9780593490747

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2024

Synopsis

"A profoundly emotional book, and a brave one." --The New Yorker

A literary sensation in Brazil, Luiz Schwarcz's brave and tender memoir interrogates his ordeal of bipolar disorder in the context of a family story of murder, dispossession, and silence--the long echo of the Holocaust across generations

As a child, Luiz Schwarcz knew little about his grandfather and namesake, Lajos. Only later did he learn that Lajos, a devout Hungarian Jew, had been put on a train to a Nazi death camp with his son André, whom he ordered to leap to freedom at a rail crossing while he himself was carried on to death. What young Luiz did know was that his father, André, who had emigrated to Brazil, was an unhappy and silent man. Luiz blossomed into the family prodigy, becoming a groundbreaking literary publisher. He found a home in the family silence--a home that he filled with reading.

But then, at a high point of outward success, Luiz was brought low by a mental breakdown. The Absent Moon is the story of his journey both to that point and back from it, as Luiz learned to forge a more honest relationship with his own mind, with his family, and with their shared past. The culmination is this extraordinary book--the product of a lifetime's reflection, by a master storyteller.

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593490746
• ISBN 13: 9780593490747
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240