Anne Frank: The Biography - Hardcover

Muller, Melissa

4.34

25,346 ratings by Goodreads

9780747543725: Anne Frank: The Biography

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747543720 ISBN 13: 9780747543725

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 1999

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This biography traces Anne Frank's life from an idyllic childhood in an assimilated family to her adolescence in German-occupied Amsterdam and her desperate end in Bergen Belsen. The author examines Anne's relations with her mother and the mystery of who betrayed the families hiding in the annex. An epilogue is provided by Miep Gies, who hid the family for two years.

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Review:

One of this book's great strengths is writer Melissa Muller's ability to situate Anne Frank's famous diary within a larger historical and biographical context--more than half of it covers the years before the Franks went into hiding. Equally important is her discovery of the existence of five pages Otto Frank removed from his daughter's original diary and entrusted shortly before his death to Cor Sujik, International Director of New York's Anne Frank Centre. Sujik showed these pages to Muller, who accurately notes in the biography that they "enhance our understanding of the diary's author."

Until now, readers have known the eight people sequestered in the secret annexe through Anne's eyes only. Muller reveals everyone's correct names (they were changed for the diary's publication) and tactfully corrects a teenager's skewed perceptions when necessary, always reminding us of the claustrophobic closeness and material deprivation that sometimes fuelled Anne's uncharitable comments about, for example, the middle-aged dentist with whom she was forced to share a room. Muller also plausibly identifies the Dutch informant who betrayed the secret annexe's inhabitants to the Gestapo. Horror suffuses Muller's grim recap of the Franks' ordeal at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, though there is some comfort in survivors' reports that Anne, her mother and her older sister formed "an inseparable trio," all former quarrels forgotten in their fierce struggle to save each other. They failed and Muller does not gloss over that tragedy. But she reminds us that: "In the end, the Nazi terror could not silence Anne's voice, which still rings out for all of us."

Review:

"Flawlessly researched and compellingly written . . . In her comprehensive and nuanced portrait of Anne and her collapsing world, M�ller has given us Anne Frank for adults." --The Christian Science Monitor

"In this updated edition of her superb 1998 biography, M�ller adds immeasurably to a well-known story . . . An invaluable complement to an immortal testimony." --Kirkus (starred review)

"Superb. . . . This meticulous and gripping narrative honors in full a life we thought we knew." --Newsweek

"M�ller pays respect to the legend, but she also does something long overdue. She saves Anne Frank from idolatry and impersonal symbolism by restoring her physical presence." --R.Z. Sheppard, Time

"One might ask, what remains to be said about Anne Frank? Quite a bit, as it turns out. . . . In addition to revealing the missing diary pages, this biography also acts as a supplement to the diary, filling in Anne's fragmentary view of her own life. . . . One of the things that lends this biography such power is the awful juxtaposition of the ordinary and the horrific." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Remarkable. . . . M�ller has achieved the near-impossible by restoring human proportions to the near mythical Anne. . . . M�ller has returned the young writer to history." --Susan Jacoby, Newsday

"Mueller's book reminds us of the powerful role of contingency in history. It also ably celebrates what it calls 'a life of singular intensity' and offers noteworthy additions to Anne Frank's story . . . .Mueller's biography, in the end, does exactly what it should: it sends us back to Anne's words." --Julia M. Klein, The Philadelphia Inquirer

"M�ller offers an especially impressive portrait of Anne's father, Otto, as well as a chilling, convincing theory about the Dutch informant who likely led the Gestapo to the secret annex." --Carolyn Alessio, Chicago Tribune (editor's choice)

"A thoughtful book, honorable and fluent . . . humane." --Robert Skloot, The Nation

"The author's literary gifts and exhaustive research distinguish Anne Frank: The Biography as both an absorbing and definitive text." --Deborah Hornblow, The Hartford Courant

"M�ller succeeds in rounding out the picture of the sensitive and talented Jewish schoolgirl though interviews with friends and family, letters and previously unavailable documents." --The Minneapolis Star Tribune

"The first serious biography of Anne Frank." --David Barnouw and Gerrold van der Stroom, editors of The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition

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