About the Book:
Sometimes there may be more to things than meets the eye.
Germany, 1933. Anna Winter returns home to find a note from her father, warning her of grave danger. She flees overnight, taking her precious doll collection with her, and sets sail for Australia. She lands a job at the Birdum Hotel and carves a new life, hiding her past from the world – until a chance encounter with an eccentric stranger, Alter Mayseh, changes everything.
Australia, 1938. A Yiddish poet fleeing persecution, Alter has seen the writing on the wall for his people. Armed with a letter of introduction from Albert Einstein, he manages his own escape from Europe and arrives in Australia in search of a safe place to call home. When fate leads him to Anna, he's convinced he's found his future with her. But a disturbing clue to her dark past threatens to unravel the delicate life she has built on top of the secrets left behind.
Shifting in time and place, Doll's Eye weaves an intriguing story of love, loss and survival against a backdrop of war and displacement. Evocative and compelling, it brings into question the gap between what we see, and what we don't.
Published by Penguin Books Australia
Released August 2023
My Thoughts:
Four years ago, Leah Kaminsky released The Hollow Bones, to date, still one of the best novels I've ever read. Doll's Eye is her latest release, and it once again tells a story of Nazism and science. It's a cautionary tale, about the judgements we can make by only seeing what's on the surface of a person, their history, and where they come from.
Once again, I have been informed by Leah of a horrifying scientific aspect of Nazism that I had no idea existed. It's like a bottomless well, isn't it, when you look behind the curtain. Told with chilling brevity, this novel moves back and forth through time seamlessly, revealing as it goes, the horror building, the truth being exposed, not just to the reader, but to the characters also.
Anna was a memorable character, her determination to leave her past that she was unwittingly pulled into as a child, her grief for her lost mother, father, and entire history, her love for her dolls and the maintenance and creation of them. Alter's treatment of her, however he justified it, was wrong and not at all demonstrative of a man in love.
This is not a long novel, but therein is part of its power. Leah writes what is necessary, but with layers beneath for you to continue to turn over within your own mind, long after you've finished reading. The sense of time and place is strong and highly atmospheric. Another stunning release from Leah Kaminsky that I highly recommend to all.
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
No comments:
Post a Comment