Portland Public Library

The book of dirt, Bram Presser

eng

Includes bibliographical references

illustrations

no index present

fiction

The book of dirt

bibliography

987682926

Bram Presser

The Book of Dirt is a love story, a riveting survivors' tale, and a grandson's quest to learn about his grandparents' extraordinary lives. The author's family built myths around them- Jakub was a teacher in the camps, keeping the children busy until it was their turn to be killed; Dasa laid the railway sleepers on the tracks that brought her fellow Jews to their deaths. When they died, their stories went with them. Then came the cracks. Everything the author thought he knew was wrong. In this story of two unlikely survivors, Bram Presser brilliantly imagines the fate of Jakub, deported to Auschwitz and to Theresienstadt, where it was rumoured after the war that he had sorted through thousands of Jewish texts confiscated for a so-called Nazi Museum of the Extinct Race. The Book of Dirt is also the story of Frantiska, her fraught marriage in Prague, and how she and her two eldest daughters, Dasa and Irena, miraculously survived the camps. The Book of Dirt is a completely original, page-turning novel about family myths and Jewish myths. And it is a heart-warming story about a grandson's devotion to the power of writing, storytelling and his family's legacy

Cast of Characters -- In the Beginning an Exodus -- Arrivals -- Occupation -- Numbers -- Epilogue -- A Guide to Czech Pronunciation -- Glossary -- A Note on Historical Sources -- Map of Theresienstadt (Terezin) -- Map of Birkenau (Auschwitz II) -- List of Images -- Acknowledgments

adult