The Light After the War by Anita Abriel

Inspired by her mother's story, Anita Abriel's The Light After the War takes readers across the world following the paths of girlhood friends Vera and Edith from Budapest to escaping the Nazis and hiding out in Austria, to Italy and Venezuela.

Believing they had lost their families and loved ones, the girls try to move on with their lives after the war. Edith dreams of becoming a fashion designer and Vera had hoped to be a playwright but settles for copywriting.

The background of Jews migrating to more tolerant societies was new and interesting. There is referred violence and death relating to the Holocaust and the girls must resist predatory men, but there is nothing graphic in the story. The concentration is on their determination and friendship, and the charmed luck their beauty brings in the form of helpers and aides along their journey.

Easy to read and easy to digest, with star-crossed lovers and jealousy, the novel felt more like a romance than heavier WWII-era historical-fiction fare. The resolution will satisfy those who believe in fate and true love.

I was given access to a free book by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The author has published under Anita Hughes with several books becoming Hallmark Channel movies.

The Light After the War
by Anita Abriel
Atria Books
Pub Date 04 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781982122973
PRICE $36.00 (CAD)

Family Record by Patrick Modiano

My childhood was impacted by a move to another state, leaving behind my family, friends, and school. I was not the same child afterward. I did not live in the present for a long time. Memories of the past were held dear; I was awash in nostalgia and longing to restore what I had lost consumed me.

My grandfather wrote about his childhood in the early 1900s and I inherited his family genealogy records. Decades later I became a genealogy researcher. My father wrote his memoirs of growing up in the Depression and WWII years and running a business in the 1950s. Perhaps it was already in my blood to look back and record life. A few years back I wrote about my life on my blog, dipping into my diaries and scrapbooks to rediscover what I had forgotten.

Or misremembered. Somehow, our memories are not truly all fact, there is an element of fiction, rewriting, that happens in our brains. We naturally turn our experience into a novel, a story with meaning, a vehicle used to demonstrate the truth as we would have it.

"Memory itself is corroded by acid, and of all those cries of suffering and horrified faces from the past, only echoes remain, growing fainter and fainter vague outlines." ~from Family Record by Patrick Modiano

French Literature is my weak spot and I had not heard of Pulitzer Prizer winner Patrick Modiano. The cover and book title, Family Record, caught my eye and the blurb cinched my interest in requesting the galley.

Modiano shares his family and personal history through what are essentially short stories, glimpses that skip across time, weaving together a thoughtful consideration of experience.

He tells about returning to the places of his childhood and youth and encountering people who knew his family. He records meetings with strangers with mysterious pasts. And of the beautiful woman who pretended to be the daughter of a once-famous entertainer and who asked him to write his biography, setting Modiano on a career path.

He recreates the romantic meeting of his parents in occupied Paris and recalls the uncle who longed to live in the country in an old mill. He tells the story of losing himself to the present in Switzerland at twenty years old and seeing the man who collaborated with the Nazis to deport thousands from France, deciding to confront him.

"...And in Paris, the survivors of the camps waited in striped pajamas, beneath the chandeliers of the Hotel Lutetia. I remember all of it."~ from Family Record by Patrick Modiano

He begins with the birth of his daughter and the rush to obtain her birth registration and he ends with his daughter in his arms, a being yet without memory.

It is a lovely read, quiet and thoughtful.

The publisher granted me access to a free egalley through NetGalley in exchange for my fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher:
An enthralling reflection on the ways that family history influences identity, from the 2014 Nobel laureate for literature

A mix of autobiography and lucid invention, this highly personal work offers a deeply affecting exploration of the meaning of identity and pedigree. With his signature blend of candor, mystery, and bewitching elusiveness, Patrick Modiano weaves together a series of interlocking stories from his family history: his parents’ courtship in occupied Paris; a sinister hunting trip with his father; a chance friendship with the deposed King Farouk; a wistful affair with the daughter of a nightclub singer; and the author’s life as a new parent.

Modiano’s riveting vignettes, filled with a coterie of dubious characters—Nazi informants, collaborationist refugees, and black-market hustlers—capture the drama that consumed Paris during World War II and its aftermath. Written in tones ranging from tender nostalgia to the blunt cruelty of youth, this is a personal and revealing book that brings the enduring significance of a complicated past to life.

Internationally renowned author Patrick Modiano has been awarded, among many other distinctions, the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in Paris. Mark Polizzotti is the translator of more than fifty books from the French, including nine by Modiano.

Family Record
by Patrick Modiano
Yale University Press
Pub Date 24 Sep 2019
ISBN 9780300238310
PRICE $16.00 (USD)

Helen Korngold Diary: August 25-31, 1919

This year I am sharing the 1919 diary of Helen Korngold of St. Louis, MO.

Helen is enjoying a summer break after graduation from Washington University before taking up teaching.

Apparently, in October Helen tried to fill in some blank days in the diary. 

August

Monday 25
Worked around. Wrote letters in evening.

Tuesday 26
I think I spent most of this day in Granite City.

Wednesday 27
It is late in October now & I don’t remember much of what happened this day.

Thursday 28
Suppose I cleaned & ironed

Friday 29
Cleaned

Saturday 30
Fooled around

Sunday 31
Had a good time.

Notes:
Aug 26

Granite City in Madison County, IL is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. In 1906-7 a flood of 10,000 East and Central European immigrants settled there. In was the birthplace of Granitewear, granite coated tin cooking utensils that became a major U.S. industry.
http://www.granitecitygossip.com/HistoricalPagesGraniteCity.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_City,_Illinois

*****

A new source on Newspapers.com is The Jewish Voice, published in St. Louis from 1888 to 1933, with papers available from 1888-1920.

In the social news, I learned that Helen's summer 1919 trip to Colorado Springs was to visit her uncle Joseph Frey! I have no record of his living outside of St. Louis, so he must have invited her to travel with him on vacation.

On his WWII draft card, Joseph (1884-1962) worked for the Levi Memorial Hospital as a traveling field sec. Joseph was 5'10", 185 pounds, with gray hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion. His WWI draft card showed he was a pharmacist and had black hair and eyes. He edited A Modern View, a Jewish newspaper. I do not find that he was married.

I quickly discovered articles written by Helen for the Junior Auxiliary Council of Jewish Women, articles about her father's involvement in United Hebrew Temple, her Aunt Beryl Frey's musical presentations, and poetry and articles published by her mother Eva Frey Korngold.

Our Home
Eva Korngold, St. Louis
(Sung to the air of America.)
The Jewish Voice, Nov. 11, 1915

Our temple let it be,
A home to you and me. All through, our lives.
Here let us learn to love,
And worship Him above.
Let praises fill the air Of God our King.

When sorrow fills our soul
And friends with us condole,
Oh, give us strength.
Turn not away Thy face,
But with Thy endless grace,
Help us to bear our woes,
Throughout our days.

When joy spreads far its light,
Throughout the world so bright,
Glory be Thine.
Loud let us then proclaim,
And glorify Thy name,
Let voices ring with cheer,
From far and near.

Let then our temple hold,
And gather in its fold, Those of our faith.
 And then from out our ranks,
We'll offer up our thanks,
For strength or joy that's ours,
To Him above.

You and I
By Eva Korngold
The Jewish Voice, July 21, 1916

If you would always say
Kind words the livelong day,
And I would always smile and bow
A world of friends we'd have by now. I

f you would always do
What you think good and true,
And 1 would follow close behind
A paradise on earth we'd find.

If you would thankful be
For gifts that God gave thee,
And in practice would put mine
The sun for us would always shine.

Our Moses
Eva Korngold
(Poem for Children.)
07 Apr 1916

The Pessach week is close at hand,
Which we celebrate throughout the land,
With feasts and prayers and hope and song
In the land of Zion to be ere long.

We think of Moses, the wonderful boy
Who filled our nation with so much joy;
We picture him into the water thrown,
Thank God, he was not left alone.

Sis' Miriam, with heart so good and true,
Walked back and forth the long day through,
'Till Pharaoh's offspring With maids so gay.
Came dancing along that very same way.

The golden-haired Moses in the basket they spied,
'Twas the voice of God, that through him cried,
That touched their hearts so big and fine,
To save from death this child divine.

Then Miriam with joy stepped forth to say,
That she a nurse could fetch that day.
And off she flew to bring his mother.
Who nursed the child as could no other.

To the palace in haste, the child was brought.
Where a home for him the princess sought.
The king, to please his daughter so fair
Allowed the child to stay right there.

Now he received much love and care,
Mid all that helped him well to fare,
He grew to be a man so great,
That none like him e'er lived to date.

In the ways of God he lived and walked,
Of Him so much he wrote and talked.
The fetters of the Jews he broke asunder
Great things he did to make them wonder.

When plague after plague was of no avail
It seemed as if his scheme would fail,
To lead the Jews from out the land
Where they were slaves at the king's demand.

But soon through the sea the Jews were led,
And into the desert with them he fled.
They had no time their bread to bake,
Unleavened food were glad to make.

For oven they used the sun so hot.
And all were pleased to bear their lot,
For now they felt that they were free,
As all the people on earth should be.

For years and years they lived in peace,
Until their worship of God did cease,
And now in memory of Moses' great feat,
The matzos in freedom and peace we eat.

ON SHABUOTH
 By Eva Korngold
The Jewish Voice, June 2, 1916

Like angels that are pure and heavenly
The messengers and servants of our God;
Like sun and moon and stars and all that's bright,
The wonder works that give our world delight;
Like budding trees and flowers of early Spring
That bid fair promise to blossom and to bloom
Just so pure, so radiant and full of hope.
This day with joy that words can never paint.
We see upon the altar of God and man
Our little children ready to embrace
The faith that stands for love, for truth, for hope;
They pledge the Ten Commandments to obey,
The laws that rule and govern all the world
Which on this day the Lord our God gave us.
The duties of the Jew toward God and man
Has been religiously on them impressed,
And when the holy blessings are pronounced
On heads that low before our Father, bow,
May the voice of Him be heard to say Amen.

June 9, 1916

Helen Korngold Diary April 14-20 1919

This year I am sharing the diary of Helen Korngold of St. Louis, MO.

Helen Korngold, December 1919, New York City

Monday 14
Tired – arose 6 a.m. Helped Momma with Passover dishes. To school – Soldiers Peace Conference.  Home after basketball. Herbert came for Seder. We are crazy about him. Letter from Summer.

Tuesday 15
School. Home – Herbert was over for dinner. He’s such a peach. Too bad he had to leave for Springfield. We wanted him to stay over, but he couldn’t.

Wednesday 16
School. Baseball. Home – Aunt Beryl’s for dinner.

Thursday 17
School – Letter from Koloditsky – mushy. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.

Friday 18
School – dancing – To Bonnie Young’s at night. Went with Morris Gates. Her cousin, Spiro, plays violin very well. Had a good time.

Saturday 19
School. J.C. Board meeting. Saw Susan Hauskay/Hawakays [illegible] with folks

Notes:

April 14


Soldiers Peace Conference article in April 14, 1919 St Louis Star

April 18 (Good Friday and a school holiday)

Morris Milton Gates was born on July 8, 1895, and died in December 1969. His World War I Draft Registration shows he worked at R. Gates Furniture Company at 804 N 7th St. Morris was in the National Guard. He was of medium height and weight with brown eyes and black hair. Morris appears on the 1920 St. Louis Census as 24 years old and a salesman, living with his family. In 1931 Morris married Ruth Gutfreund.

His father Rudolph was a German born in Poland in 1868 and died in St. Louis in 1946. He married Fannie Weiss, sister of Rose Weiss who married Charles Wolf and was mother to Helen’s friend Dan Wolf. Rudolph was a merchant of furniture on the 1910 St. Louis Census. Morris’ brother Sidney also worked for the family business. Morris also had sisters Jeanette and Ernestine.

Bernice Young’s cousin Bernard Spiro was born in 1898 in New York, NY and died in 1992 in California.

April 19 (school holiday)

Susanne Hawakays: I have not been able to verify the reading of Helen’s handwriting to pin down this woman.

April 14, 1919 ad in St Louis Post Dispatch

The Diary of Helen Korngold: A Glimpse into St. Louisan Jewish Society in 1919

In 2001 while I was browsing through a second-hand shop in south Lansing, Michigan, I came across a 1919 Stix, Baer & Fuller diary. I picked the book up and was amazed to see it was completely filled with diary entries. After reading a few entries I was charmed by the writer.

Helen Korngold, December 1919
22 years old. Taken in New York City.

The December, 31 entry ended with the signature Helen Korngold. Intrigued, I paid $15 and brought the diary home.

The diary as I found it

The diary tells the story of Helen's senior year at Washington University, pursued by boys and having a grand time, yet single-minded about her chosen career as a teacher.

The Diary of Helen Korngold

Helen was the daughter of a Jewish immigrant who by hard work and persistence built a successful business. They were part of a vibrant Jewish community in St. Louis that had deep roots.

Helen's St Louis was in its heyday. WWI had just ended, and many of the boys Helen writes about were returning home, passing through the barracks near the university.

Helen as a young teacher at Normandy H.S. in St. Louis, 1936

Helen as a teacher at Normandy H. S. in St. Louis, 1937

I have researched all aspects of Helen’s life: her friends, the places she visited, her family history. I am a genealogist and researched Helen on Ancestry.com and started a Korngold family tree, the first for her lineage. 

I wanted to solve the mystery of how a St. Louis girl’s 1919 diary ended up in Lansing, Michigan. It took me over a decade to find the answer, and only then because a member of her extended family started their own family tree. In the last year, I have been contacted by two of Helen's great-nieces and learned more about Helen's later life.

Helen Korngold Herzog and Fritz Herzog, family photograph

Helen became a teacher in a local high school. Helen married Fritz Herzog, the love of her life. Fritz was a Jewish immigrant who came to America as a student and went on to become an important American mathematician. He lost his entire family during the Holocaust.

In the coming year, I will be sharing Helen's diary entries and my research, sharing a week's diary entries and notes on every Saturday.

Helen's diary was from a local department store

I have completely enjoyed learning about Helen. I hope that my readers will enjoy visiting a world from a century ago and will come to love Helen as much as I do.

Below is some general background information about Washington University and St. Louis.

Notes and Background Information

Washington University was an army post for the armed services during WWI and many students left for the war. According to an article, “ By the end of 1917, 200 faculty and students had signed up, and on December 19 a service flag with 200 stars was hoisted over University Hall. The next day an 83-star flag went up over the medical school. Eventually, 410 graduates and 93 undergraduates received commissions, and 22 students, staff, or alumni died while in service.”

Professors added war-related courses. Dean Langsdorf added a radio communications course. Dr. Usher's 1913 book Pan-Germanism had predicted the war. His anti-German sentiments brought criticism and he responded with a public statement for academic freedom.

“In spring 1917, the Fifth Missouri Regiment came to campus, using Francis Field as its drill ground, and the next January student soldiers arrived for woodworking, blacksmithing, and machine shop training. Perhaps the biggest disruption to University life, however, was the October 1918 arrival of hundreds of men in the Students' Army Training Corps (SATC), aimed at training recruits and developing potential officers. The SATC, said the Hatchet, "saved Washington from becoming a girls' college for the period of the war." Suddenly, enrollment skyrocketed; in fall 1918, the University had 1,515 students—a 50 percent increase over the previous year.”

The SATC took over all residence halls but the women's dorms and the Francis Gymnasium. Barracks, a mess hall, and a YMCA canteen were built adjacent to the campus. With the end of the war on November 11, 1918 the SATC disbanded and left the campus. In March 1919, the Alumni Association held a banquet honoring the university's war heroes.

Named for President Jefferson, The Jefferson Barracks opened in 1826 and closed in 1946. During World War 1 it was the nation’s largest induction and demobilization center for military personnel on the way to deployment in Europe.

Some of the servicemen Helen met, like Dewey Pierre Flambert, were likely stationed at the Barracks on their way back home.

http://www.stlouisco.com/ParksandRecreation/ParkPages/JeffersonBarracks/JeffersonBarracksMuseums
http://www.jbhf.org/index.html
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/jbphotos/
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/jb/views.htm

The Spanish Influenza

The 1918 Spanish Influenza closed Washington University for six weeks. The Student Life Vol. 43, No. 2, of October 11, 1918, reported an empty campus as all classes were suspended after 12:30 pm on Wednesday, October 9, 1918. Administrative work and football and hockey practice continued and professors reported to their classrooms. Graham Chapel became a Red Cross shop where students made influenza masks. Classes resumed Monday, November 18; longer classes were scheduled to make up for lost time. By November 29, 1918, only 8 cases of influenza were reported and the crisis was considered over.

For further information, see the WU Magazine article from Winter 2003, "Over There":http://magazine-archives.wustl.edu/Winter03/OverThere.htm   or consult the WUSTL History section of the Archives Vertical Files.

Jewish Roots in St. Louis

St. Louis had a long history of Jewish society by the time Helen was born in 1899. In 1807 Joseph Philipson arrived from Philadelphia and became the first Jewish merchant. By 1900 there were 40,000 Jews in St. Louis.

http://www.stlgs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=316&Itemid=507

The first Jewish services date to 1837. United Hebrew Synagogue was the first established in the city and still exists today. In 1856 Mt. Olive Cemetery was opened.

Helen notes helping her mother with Seder dinner and attending Temple Satellites, Young Hebrew activities, and teaching Sunday School classes.

Helen's parents are buried in the United Hebrew Cemetery and her brother Karol in Mt Sinai.

The Jewish population was deeply assimilated into the American culture. Fraternal organizations accepted Jewish members.

https://stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/planning/cultural-resources/preservation-plan/Part-I-Religious-Life.cfm

The Family Tabor: Atonement and the Search for Meaning

Harry Tabor is an emperor in his world. He has everything he could have ever imagined. The novel begins the day before Harry Tabor's recognition dinner as Man of the Year. In earlier times Harry would have been "running for his life" from pogroms, as did his grandparents, instead of living in Palm Springs with a lovely family gathering to see him honored. He thinks, "I have been a very lucky man," but as the authorial voice warns, "luck is a rescindable gift."

Harry hears a voice that resurrects memories buried so deep that he had lost sight of them completely. At seventy years old, Harry realizes he is unworthy of high honors and must face the truth and atone for his sins.

Harry's children also each struggle with secrets they can't reveal, a search for love or meaningful work, a need for spiritual or emotional rebirth, the need for mystery or the magic of ritual.

There came a time when I could not put this novel aside and found myself furiously reading and watching the battery life on my iPad counting down...20%...11%... I finished it just before the battery gave out, my husband very grateful that I was finally going to make him dinner. (Yes, he can cook, but has a bum knee right now.)

The happy family gathering is revealed to be a gathering of troubled souls, and by the grace of God, are bound together, each healed and made stronger. The novel's focus on the spiritual life of the characters may not appeal to some readers, but I loved it.

I loved Cherise Wolas's first novel The Resurrection of Joan Ashby, although I felt the ending dragged. For me, The Family Tabor began slow and gathered strength about halfway.

I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Family Tabor: A Novel
by Cherise Wolas
Flatiron Books
Pub Date 17 Jul 2018
ISBN 9781250081452
PRICE $27.99 (USD)

We Are Gathered by Jamie Weisman

If you think We Are Gathered by Jamie Weisman is a soppy or romanticized novel about the perfect wedding you are wrong. No, Jamie Weisman's amazing novel is about the people who have been invited to the wedding, friends of the bride or the bride's family. Their stories are told one by one, each darker and more soul-wrenching than the previous, until I was almost fearful to read the last entry. But that was the story of True Love--not the bride and groom's true love story, but that of a haunted elderly lady and the broken man who saves her.

The bride's father is a ruthless man. "Every man wanted Ida, but I was the one who got her," he thinks about his wife; "A man is judged by the woman with him, and Ida's beauty made me more powerful." A stroke leaves him unable to communicate as he watches his business crumble and his daughter marry a non-Jew. He sees life as a "brutal and exhausting gallop through a desert populated by predators and parasites."

A mother's life work is to care for her son who was born with Muscular Dystrophy. He once spent a week at a camp where the bride was a counselor.

A woman wears her birthmark proudly although she resents not having been born beautiful. "There is no justice in this world," she begins, despairing at the bride's beauty. "What am I without my birthmark?" she questions, dismissing the makeup that can make her look perfect.

A college roommate of the bride's father has drifted in and out of addiction. Drafted during Vietnam, he "didn't love my life enough to make it worth avoiding" the war. "People who go to war are different from everyone else," he thinks.

A man who once got the bride drunk and didn't take advantage of her, but also did not protect her from the other frats, was going to be a heart surgeon before he had a breakdown. The bride disdains him. He wanders from the ceremony.

An elderly lady survived the Holocaust but can't forget the loved ones who did not. She married a kind man and had a decent life, but is still haunted by the past.

Weisman has written so many sentences and pages that I fell in love with and which I wanted to read out loud to anyone in earshot.

I loved the mother of the bride's musings on a life given to her family.

"My friend Rita once said that your children come to you perfect, and the best you can hope for is not to allow too much damage, from yourself first and foremost, and then from the world."

I shuddered at that line. It rang true. I had the same thought when our son was a preschooler, an awareness of all the scars life would lay on his unblemished soul and skin moving me to tears. The mother thinks, there are limitations and childhood wounds which we parents bring with us, inadequacies, and actions that result in regrets.

"They intend to have it all, careers, families, creativity, at least for the lucky few who can afford it," she thinks. The bride appears to be one of those lucky ones.

I am grateful to have won the book on #FridayFreebie on The Quivering Pen blog by author David Abrams.

from the publisher:

One afternoon in Atlanta, Georgia. Two people heading to the altar. One hundred fifty guests. The bride, Elizabeth Gottlieb, proud graduate of the University of Virginia and of Emory University School of Law, member of Atlanta’s wealthy Jewish elite. The groom, Hank Jackson, not a member. Not a Jew. The couple of the hour, however, is beside the point, because We Are Gathered belongs to the guests. 

Among them, Carla, Elizabeth’s quick-witted, ugly duckling childhood best friend turned Hollywood film scout, whose jaundiced view of the drama that is an American wedding provides a lens of humor and its corollary, deep compassion for the supporting actors who steal the show; Elizabeth’s great-aunt Rachel, a Holocaust survivor from Germany who is still navigating a no-man’s-land between cultures and identities decades after escaping from the forests of Europe; Elizabeth’s wheelchair-bound grandfather Albert, who considers his legacy as a man, both in the boardroom and the bedroom; and Annette, the mother of the bride herself, reminded now of her youthful indiscretions in love and motherhood. 

 Balancing razor-sharp humor with a blunt vision of the fragility of our mortal bonds, Jamie Weisman skillfully constructs a world—and family—that pulls you in and carries you along with its refreshing, jagged beauty

Waking Lions: The Complexity of Our Choices

While driving in the desert at night, distracted by the most beautiful moon he has ever seen, Dr. Eitan Green hits a man. A brain surgeon, he knows the man will not live. He makes the decision to drive on, leaving the dying man. He won't risk his career by reporting the accident.

He does not know he left behind a clue or that the dying man's wife Sirkit witnessed the accident. She blackmails the doctor: he will spend his nights at a makeshift clinic caring for her fellow Eritrean refugees.

A man who prefers to live in order, who shuns the blood and shit of human frailty, the doctor is thrust into the dirty, ugly side of life. But as he works with the tall, proud woman, he comes to admire her skill and to secretly lust for her.

Dr. Green's wife is a detective on the case of the hit-and-run victim. She struggles with her husband's absence, sure he is not cheating on her, yet sensing something is not right.

Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, beautifully translated from the Hebrew by Sondra Silverston, is a remarkable novel that probes the complexity of our moral choices. People do bad things or good things, for bad reasons or good ones, culminating in earned or unearned outcomes. It is about power shifts, the prejudice between Israelis, Bedouins, and African Eritreans, the refugee experience, the mystery of never really knowing one another, and how the privileged class can turn away from the uncomfortable and live in a sterile world of their own making.

The story is told by an omniscient narrator who knows the thoughts of the characters, without dialogue. Twists create an unexpectedly propulsive, action plot line. It is a memorable novel.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Waking Lions
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
Little, Brown, and Company
$9.99 paperback
ISBN: 9780316395403

Central Station by Lavie Tidhar: Fantastic Yet Familiar

Central Station imagines a world where divisions have blurred between man-created and biological entities and corporate and personal memory. Conversation has shifted from personal one-on-one dialogue to universal eavesdropping and vicarious experience available through an implanted node.

Central Station is the interstellar port that rises above Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa where people "still lived as they had always lived." We will recognize aspects of their lives, the human need for love, the seeking of answers through faith and escape through drugs, the vilification of those who are different. And yet this world, this society, is totally a new imagining.

Originally a series of short stories about individuals whose ancestors came to build the station or fight in the old wars, this is not a plot-driven book but is still compulsive. Long explanations do not burden the tale; you take the strange and new by faith and context, growing into understanding.

Some of the characters and their stories include:

Boris Chong and Miriam Jones had once been young and in love. Boris worked in the labs that created human life but left to work on Mars. He has returned to Central Station with a Martian aug, a parasite, having learned his father's memory was failing. Miriam has adopted a strange child born in Boris's lab.

Boris is followed by an ex-lover named Carmel, a data vampire who is shunned and dangerous. Carmel becomes lovers with one of the few humans without a node, Achimwene, a man she cannot feed on and who cannot become addicted to the dopamine high stimulated by her theft of their memory data. Sometimes he wonders what it was like to be "whole," growing up part of the Conversation, for a human without a node was a 'cripple'. His passion is for mid-twentieth century pulp fiction books, the cheap paperbacks crumbling and yellowed. Their story and search for answers was one of my favorite sections.

"Just another broken-down robotnik, just another beggar hunting the night streets looking for a handout or a fix or both."

Miriam's sister Isobel Chow is in love with Motl, an ex-soldier who was mechanically rebuilt over and over until he is more machine than man. Robots haven't been made for a long time and these veterans end up on the street begging for replacement parts to keep going. He no longer recalls what wars he had fought, but the vision of war and death remain. He is an ex-addict of the faith drug Crucifixion. Now his parts are breaking down, but his feelings are strong.  "Sometimes you needed to believe you could believe, sometimes you had to figure heaven could come from another human being and not just in a pill."

"This part of the world had always needed a messiah."

R. Brother Patch-It is a robo-priest and part-time moyel. "We dream a consensus of reality," he preaches. It feels tired, old, his parts wearing out, and sometimes he is envious of the human trait of sensation and stimulation. "To be a robot, you needed faith, R. Patch-It thought. To be a human, too."

On the flip side, Ruth Cohen longs to be part of something bigger, a total immersion in The Conversation, the linked awareness made possible through the node implant. "Are you willing to give up your humanity?" she is asked.

Behind these otherworldly characters are still basic stories of humanity's essence: the search for love and meaning.

"It is, perhaps, the prerogative of every man or woman to imagine, and thus force a shape, a meaning, onto that wild and meandering narrative of their lives by choosing genre. A princess is rescued by a prince; a vampire stalks a victim in the dark; a student becomes the master. The circle is complete. And so on."

"There comes a time in a man's life when he realizes stories are lies. Things do not end neatly."

My son, blog writer of Battered, Tattered, Yellowed and Creased, raved about Tidhar's book (read his review here) which motivated me to request it through NetGalley. Central Station has won multiple awards and huge recognition. It is sure to be a classic. I thank the publisher for the ebook in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Central Station
Lavie Tidhar
Tachyon Publications
ISBN: 9781616962142
$15.95