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After Auschwitz: A Love Story
"When we're young we tend to think of memory as something belonging to us. There are good memories and bad ones, but aside from forgetting names occasionally, it is hard to imagine what ceasing to rely on your memory means. My mind still functions enough for me to be frightened and feel diminished. Someday, I hope not too soon, I'll cease to be alarmed...."
-- Renzo, from After A Love Story
Two of the 20th century's terrible A's collide in this powerful novel -- Alzheimer's Disease and the Auschwitz death camp. Brenda Webster brings to bear her considerable knowledge of Jewish and Italian history and culture, personal acquaintance with the families of luminaries like Primo Levi, and a lifetime of psychological insight as she observes the intellectual decline of Renzo, a once brilliant writer and filmmaker.
The novel is set entirely in Rome in 2010, and benefits from the author's comfortable familiarity with the city's haunts, both hidden and famous. Renzo, aware that he is slipping deeper and deeper into the haze of Alzheimer's, keeps a journal in which he grapples with his complicated marriage to Hannah, who survived the death camps as a child and went on to become a chronicler of that experience. Renzo knows how painful it is for Hannah to lose yet another loved one -- himself -- as he chronicles his own failing grip on reality.
This story of enduring love -- a love that makes the pain bearable -- inspires hope where there appears to be despair, and allows humor to leaven the loaf of existence. As Renzo's rich memories of the artistic and intellectual currents of the 20th century begin to fade, highly lyrical passages elucidate his sophisticated anguish and his child-like wonder.
-- Renzo, from After A Love Story
Two of the 20th century's terrible A's collide in this powerful novel -- Alzheimer's Disease and the Auschwitz death camp. Brenda Webster brings to bear her considerable knowledge of Jewish and Italian history and culture, personal acquaintance with the families of luminaries like Primo Levi, and a lifetime of psychological insight as she observes the intellectual decline of Renzo, a once brilliant writer and filmmaker.
The novel is set entirely in Rome in 2010, and benefits from the author's comfortable familiarity with the city's haunts, both hidden and famous. Renzo, aware that he is slipping deeper and deeper into the haze of Alzheimer's, keeps a journal in which he grapples with his complicated marriage to Hannah, who survived the death camps as a child and went on to become a chronicler of that experience. Renzo knows how painful it is for Hannah to lose yet another loved one -- himself -- as he chronicles his own failing grip on reality.
This story of enduring love -- a love that makes the pain bearable -- inspires hope where there appears to be despair, and allows humor to leaven the loaf of existence. As Renzo's rich memories of the artistic and intellectual currents of the 20th century begin to fade, highly lyrical passages elucidate his sophisticated anguish and his child-like wonder.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
2 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Brenda Webster
13 books6 followersBrenda Webster was born in New York City, educated at Swarthmore College, Columbia University, and University of California, Berkeley, where she earned her Ph.D. She is a freelance writer, critic, and translater who splits her time between Berkeley and Rome, and she is the current president of PEN West.
Her latest novel, VIENNA TRIANGLE, explores the loves and rivalries in Sigmund Freud's inner circle that led to the death of his disciple Viktor Tausk.
Webster has written two controversial and oft-anthologized critical studies, Yeats: A Psychoanalytic Study (Stanford University Press) and Blake's Prophetic Psychology (Macmillan), and translated poetry from the Italian for The Other Voice (Norton) and The Penguin Book of Women Poets. She is co-editor of the journals of the abstract expressionist painter (and Webster's mother) Ethel Schwabacher, Hungry for Light: The Journal of Ethel Schwabacher (Indiana, 1993). She is the author of two previous novels, Sins of the Mothers (Baskerville, 1993) and Paradise Farm (SUNY, 1999), and a memoir, The Last Good Freudian (Holmes and Meier, 2000). The Modern Language Association recently accepted for publication Webster's translation of Edith Bruck's Holocaust novel Lettera alla Madre.
Her latest novel, VIENNA TRIANGLE, explores the loves and rivalries in Sigmund Freud's inner circle that led to the death of his disciple Viktor Tausk.
Webster has written two controversial and oft-anthologized critical studies, Yeats: A Psychoanalytic Study (Stanford University Press) and Blake's Prophetic Psychology (Macmillan), and translated poetry from the Italian for The Other Voice (Norton) and The Penguin Book of Women Poets. She is co-editor of the journals of the abstract expressionist painter (and Webster's mother) Ethel Schwabacher, Hungry for Light: The Journal of Ethel Schwabacher (Indiana, 1993). She is the author of two previous novels, Sins of the Mothers (Baskerville, 1993) and Paradise Farm (SUNY, 1999), and a memoir, The Last Good Freudian (Holmes and Meier, 2000). The Modern Language Association recently accepted for publication Webster's translation of Edith Bruck's Holocaust novel Lettera alla Madre.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 11, 2014
Love in the Face of Loss
The narrator of Brenda Webster’s novel After Auschwitz: A Love Story is Renzo, an 88-year-old Italian film director whose wife Hannah spent her adolescence at Auschwitz. Renzo is experiencing both the physical infirmities of old age and the onset of Alzheimer’s. Although the book tells the story of both Renzo and Hannah, it is more his story than hers, so I kept asking myself, “Why is it called After Auschwitz?” For me, the connection seemed to be the loss of self. At Auschwitz, people were stripped of their identities, including their homes, families, friends, possessions, health, and for a great many, also their lives. Yet Hannah survived this. Old age, like Auschwitz, ultimately takes away everything that makes us who we are. Renzo has already lost his career, many friends, his health, and his independence, yet, like Hannah, he is still himself. For now, he is a survivor. Although we know he cannot remain so forever, his and Hannah’s love, which is in its second incarnation after a long separation, is a cause for celebration and makes this book not only moving but also uplifting. It’s a compelling and insightful story. A wonderful read!
The narrator of Brenda Webster’s novel After Auschwitz: A Love Story is Renzo, an 88-year-old Italian film director whose wife Hannah spent her adolescence at Auschwitz. Renzo is experiencing both the physical infirmities of old age and the onset of Alzheimer’s. Although the book tells the story of both Renzo and Hannah, it is more his story than hers, so I kept asking myself, “Why is it called After Auschwitz?” For me, the connection seemed to be the loss of self. At Auschwitz, people were stripped of their identities, including their homes, families, friends, possessions, health, and for a great many, also their lives. Yet Hannah survived this. Old age, like Auschwitz, ultimately takes away everything that makes us who we are. Renzo has already lost his career, many friends, his health, and his independence, yet, like Hannah, he is still himself. For now, he is a survivor. Although we know he cannot remain so forever, his and Hannah’s love, which is in its second incarnation after a long separation, is a cause for celebration and makes this book not only moving but also uplifting. It’s a compelling and insightful story. A wonderful read!
July 29, 2016
Oh, I wish this had been so much more than it was. I don't think this edition was professionally edited, there were many incomplete and fragmented sentences. It was so hard to like any of the characters. The dialouge was very stilted and I had a very hard time following the story. I would love a revision, an expansion, and more detail. This could be a truly amazing story but it fell very flat for me. I love the premise, and the title is awesome!
January 23, 2015
This was not one of my favorite books. That said, I truly wasn't in the mood for the genre. When I start a book, I finish a book and this was no exception. I should have waited until I was in the mood for this type of book. I found the narcissistic characters so depressing. Depressing enough to make me drag my feet when I was scheduling time to read the book.....hmmmm that in itself is depressing!
June 25, 2014
AFTER AUSCHWITZ: A LOVE STORY, Brenda Webster’s best book yet, paints a moving portrait of two people in a long and complicated marriage. Their story is told in the profoundly natural, utterly convincing voice of Renzo, a retired film director living in Rome. Descending into Alzheimers, he strives to capture the reality of his days before reality slips away from him forever. His narrative is a double helix in which the past—his wife Hannah’s as an Auschwitz survivor, his own as a serial adulterer—intertwines with and illuminates the present. Beautifully economical, sensuous, and lit with humor, Webster’s prose delivers a time, a place, a life. AFTER AUSCHWITZ: A LOVE STORY is an experience not to be missed!
February 24, 2014
This book so brilliantly captures the struggle to hold love in our hands as it slips from memory. Renzo, a famous Italian director, diagnosed with Alzheimer's, desperately grasps to keep the memories of the love of his life, Hannah– a young Holocaust survivor. At the same time, Hannah works through her memories of the suffering she endured at Auschwitz in her own writing. The writing in this book is lovely as it weaves through past and present and lightly touches on tragic and terrifying notions of what life is without memory. Must read!
March 24, 2015
This book is not well written. It reads like a listing of events and thoughts. Not a typical love story by any means. I did not have much respect for the main character of the book, so that was a let down for me.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews