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The Upright Heart
The Upright Heart chronicles the return from Brooklyn of a Jewish man, Wolf, to his native Poland soon after World War II. He is haunted by the memory of his Catholic lover, Olga, whom he abandoned to marry a woman of his own faith and start a new life in America, and who perished sheltering the parents and younger sister he left behind. Harassed on the streets of postwar Poland, Wolf is watched over by the spirits of those who died during and after the war but have yet to let go. His story is woven together with those of others, living and dead, Catholic and Jew, including the deceased students of a school for girls, a battalion of fallen German soldiers, and an orphan boy who wanders the streets of Krakow, believing in a magic pill he has conjured up as a way to survive.
Set amid the ruins of the Holocaust and the Nazis' total war, this haunting novel is at once a page-turning drama and a meditation on what it means to be human, part of a community, alive. The Upright Heart's dreamlike qualities and fluent lyricism draw the reader toward a consecrated realm, while its narrative force guides the story into the present, where survivors and their children, beset by the devastation's of the past, struggle alongside the dead to perceive and appreciate the beauty of that which remains and that which might yet be.
Set amid the ruins of the Holocaust and the Nazis' total war, this haunting novel is at once a page-turning drama and a meditation on what it means to be human, part of a community, alive. The Upright Heart's dreamlike qualities and fluent lyricism draw the reader toward a consecrated realm, while its narrative force guides the story into the present, where survivors and their children, beset by the devastation's of the past, struggle alongside the dead to perceive and appreciate the beauty of that which remains and that which might yet be.
176 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 13, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 2, 2016
World War II has ended, but for Poland the misery has not. Poverty and hunger are rampant as its people begin to put their lives back together and even as some of the survivors dare to be happy again, many of the dead find their souls still trapped in the country, watching the recovery and wondering when their time to move on will come.
The Upright Heart is a unique and interesting look at he horrors of war. Unique because it not only looks at the fear and anxiety of the survivors attempting to rebuild, it also examines the state of some of the dead. In fact, the dead must come to terms with their own fears and anxieties, and even with the fact that they have indeed died. A school full of young girls, a platoon of soldiers, a beautiful young woman discovered to be hiding her Jewish ancestry; each seemingly must accept their new fate before being allowed to move on to whatever is next.
These vignettes on the dead were the most fascinating aspect of the book for me. So descriptive and different, it was fascinating to read Ain-Krupa's visions of death and the afterlife. There are several strong characters here and as the novel jumps between each of their narratives a picture of a broken nation emerges, but one with hope both for the living and the dead. Ultimately it is that hope, however distant, that makes The Upright Heart a worthwhile read.
The Upright Heart is a unique and interesting look at he horrors of war. Unique because it not only looks at the fear and anxiety of the survivors attempting to rebuild, it also examines the state of some of the dead. In fact, the dead must come to terms with their own fears and anxieties, and even with the fact that they have indeed died. A school full of young girls, a platoon of soldiers, a beautiful young woman discovered to be hiding her Jewish ancestry; each seemingly must accept their new fate before being allowed to move on to whatever is next.
These vignettes on the dead were the most fascinating aspect of the book for me. So descriptive and different, it was fascinating to read Ain-Krupa's visions of death and the afterlife. There are several strong characters here and as the novel jumps between each of their narratives a picture of a broken nation emerges, but one with hope both for the living and the dead. Ultimately it is that hope, however distant, that makes The Upright Heart a worthwhile read.
June 23, 2016
My mind drifted at times. I wanted to eat a cookie. At the same time there 'were' things to admire about this short novel. I'm Jewish....( we like cookies...and drifting)...
and let's face it....it's not easy recounting of occupation, exodus, and loss.
Who wouldn't want a cookie?
Wolf is haunted by the living and the dead. His adult life is filled with his own inner suffering...but he remembers happy times.....( Apple Cake and Compote that his mother made when he was a child)....,or sitting in the shade under a cherry blossom tree laughing and talking.
"Wolf wonders if the only happy time in your life is when you are a child. Your mother holds you in her arms, gives you milk and bread, and baths you tenderly as if you were still in her room. You are no more then Catapillar legs, a ssun-kissed heart, and still, your hand is always held tight".
World War II Poland: Jews and Catholics --- opportunity for them to work side by side, dance together, show off their fashions, and develop friendships. The war IS over ...isn't it?/!
Potato pancakes with sour cream, big bowls of borscht....and an ice cream cone.....
is a very happy day .....*Polish Style* happy!
However....
The embroidered blue Jewish Star pinned to the inside of a uniform pocket, hidden during the day but dreamt up at night....is the sadness that never dies.
"As babies we came into this world and proved our force of life with a wailing cry.
Now we stand in silence and there is nothing concrete to separate us from the spheres all around. With just one step, the heavens rise to meet us. We are at one with this metallic atmosphere, these rotating planets in the night sky, our bodies drifting toward a crescent moon".
Intimate, with emotional restraint. A creation of art as fiction with the history of war.
Thank You Netgalley, Steerforth Press, and Julia Ain-Krupa
and let's face it....it's not easy recounting of occupation, exodus, and loss.
Who wouldn't want a cookie?
Wolf is haunted by the living and the dead. His adult life is filled with his own inner suffering...but he remembers happy times.....( Apple Cake and Compote that his mother made when he was a child)....,or sitting in the shade under a cherry blossom tree laughing and talking.
"Wolf wonders if the only happy time in your life is when you are a child. Your mother holds you in her arms, gives you milk and bread, and baths you tenderly as if you were still in her room. You are no more then Catapillar legs, a ssun-kissed heart, and still, your hand is always held tight".
World War II Poland: Jews and Catholics --- opportunity for them to work side by side, dance together, show off their fashions, and develop friendships. The war IS over ...isn't it?/!
Potato pancakes with sour cream, big bowls of borscht....and an ice cream cone.....
is a very happy day .....*Polish Style* happy!
However....
The embroidered blue Jewish Star pinned to the inside of a uniform pocket, hidden during the day but dreamt up at night....is the sadness that never dies.
"As babies we came into this world and proved our force of life with a wailing cry.
Now we stand in silence and there is nothing concrete to separate us from the spheres all around. With just one step, the heavens rise to meet us. We are at one with this metallic atmosphere, these rotating planets in the night sky, our bodies drifting toward a crescent moon".
Intimate, with emotional restraint. A creation of art as fiction with the history of war.
Thank You Netgalley, Steerforth Press, and Julia Ain-Krupa
June 24, 2016
4.5 Stars
This is not an “easy” book to read, at least not something you breeze through while your thoughts wander, which mine did after a time. I had to take breaks then, I had to read this in bits and pieces, and sometimes go back and re-read those bits and pieces again. The beginning flowed with beautiful prose and sadness and some of the grace of living, and yes, of dying, too, but after a short period, I’d be overwhelmed by these post-WWII years in Poland, the tragedy of it all, all the tragedies.
Wolf wants to return to his homeland, a place he hasn’t lived since his parents insisted he marry his cousin, leaving Olga, the woman he loved behind, and leaves Poland behind for a new life in New York. A world away. He is not there when the worst of things happen; he is more or less happily married with his wife and children living in New York. Yet he feels drawn to return, to honor those he left behind.
“There are three faded photographs stuffed into Wolf’s suit jacket pocket. No handkerchief, no dash of color, only three small crumpled photos to commemorate a life that has already split in two.”
“Wolf looks out the window and exhales. Buds are blossoming along the road to the tune of a bittersweet cry. Those little birds, they sing with delight no matter what is happening on this earth. Their songs can shower this world with blessings, signaling the beauty of a new day, but they can also be the final arrow to remember how beautiful life once was and how it can never come back together again."
Then, there are the Sarahs…
“We are all called Sarah. My name used to be Rachelka, but then it was changed, and now I am Sarah just like all the other girls. My house is built of fragile bones. They shine like Crystal prayers in the moonlight. Breathing with the rest of the world, they tremble with mystery, and become mirror images of that last living thing that gives us life, the night. These bones are built of the same calcium that once belonged to the stars.”
There are others whose stories interweave with Wolf’s; there are those who follow him around, the spirits of those who have yet to let go, watching over him. There are also the living, the boy, an orphan, and the dog. It all flows like a dream at times, this time, these places. All connected.
A prayer for the dead, a wail in lamentation, a keening for the souls tragically lost… a story of the living, for life well lived, for life itself, this is all those things, and more – such lovely prose, and overwhelmingly poignant. Like life itself, sometimes, you just have to slow down to see the beauty of it all.
Pub Date: 13 September 2016
Many thanks to Steerforth Press, NetGalley, and to author Julia Ain-Krupa for providing me with an advanced copy for reading and review
February 4, 2018
This book was very different from what I usually read. I tend to read very plot-based stories or in-depth character studies. "The Upright Heart" definitely leans more towards poetry, which is not in my wheelhouse (I say this only to point out that although poetry is not my bag, I think those who do like poetry will love this book).
Aside from a couple of violent episodes, most of the book is relatively quiet. The author is more intent on evoking a feeling than moving a plot along. That said, it's incredibly well done. I did find myself moved by this strange exploration of the Holocaust, a few of it's survivors and a few that didn't survive (theirs an element of a ghost story involved).
Aside from a couple of violent episodes, most of the book is relatively quiet. The author is more intent on evoking a feeling than moving a plot along. That said, it's incredibly well done. I did find myself moved by this strange exploration of the Holocaust, a few of it's survivors and a few that didn't survive (theirs an element of a ghost story involved).
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May 20, 2025Dnf
March 29, 2020
While I no longer choose fiction set in Europe during WW II, something drew me to this short novel about a few Poles and Jews in a Polish village. The story opens with the accidental death, after the war, of Wiktor, a good husband and father. His spirit wanders. And that's much of the story, spirits finding their way to death and reacting to their past. Wiktor, a Catholic seeing the spirit of Wolf, a Jew. This is not a novel about victims. It is short, well-written. A little confusing - the characters - who is alive? passed? nationality? fate? But it pulls together. I needed to read about and was comforted in reading about good people in vile times.
August 23, 2016
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
This is a stunningly beautiful – yet disturbing – dreamlike book. It shows that even in the midst of the most appalling atrocities that man has committed against man, there is hope, love, kindness and beauty alongside the pain, horror and loss.
This is a book about coming to term with the past – as former victim, as perpetrator, and as active or passive witness.
After the Holocaust, Wolf – a young Jewish man who had escaped to America – returns to his old home near Bialystok in Poland to find it utterly changed. While some of the faces are familiar, he is no longer welcome: “They take note of him, the stranger, who is detectable immediately as an outsider, but who is also as familiar as any other resident of the town. The face that has come back to haunt them”. He discovers “his hometown, which was once more than fifty percent Jewish, was now a place inhabited by half a world, half a heart, and most terribly, only half a soul”. “Everyone who knew me and loved me is gone. First there was death, and then there weren’t any people anymore. Now there are new people who want to forget that the old people were ever there”.
The voices of the living and the dead are given equal weight, and the narrations slip effortlessly between the two, as well as across timelines. Before, during and after the war meld into one. Where there are “no other options but to exist in between”.
Apart from Wolf, there is a large group of characters inhabiting this dream world: Rachelka and the other Sarahs in the school, German soldiers trying to get home, the old man – Wiktor – and his family, a young orphan boy, Olga, Anna and Maryna, and a small dog, as well as a cast of other Poles. All the stories are interwoven.
Wiktor acts as a guide and protector. Although the young boy is starving and alone, he possesses a “magic pill” that makes everything better, and he is desperate to pass on his good luck: “because it is important to share, because I can see that you need rescuing, too”. He is eternally optimistic and acts as a talisman – of hope for a better future: “I don’t know why, but I know that even while I sleep on the grass beneath the bridge, I am never truly alone. There is always another day, always a pigeon to nestle in my arms, always a chance to begin again”. Anna uses her imagination to escape the horror of her existence where she felt “like a cloistered witness to the end of a world”, and the guilt of her survival.
Everyone has lost someone and some intangible part of their soul. The book looks at mourning and the comfort of ritual prayer as ways of overcoming the loss, and as tools enabling passing on. The dead appear more at peace than the living – their pain is over. Which comes across as a wonderful consoling thought – That there IS a light at the end of the tunnel.
The language is poetic and paints emotionally very intensive, though visually opaque, scenes: “In this region of Poland daylight can seem like a pale and hallucinatory dream, so white that it is as if God were trying to erase the world”. My impression of the book was that it all took place in varying shades of grey, through a metaphorical mist. If the book is ever filmed – it cannot be done in colour.
This is a magical book that is experienced rather than simply read. Your emotions are pulled all over the place. Even writing this review I am welling up, as I remember what I have absorbed.
“You can change a person’s language. You can take from him everything material, and yet you must leave him something to love. And if there is no person left for him to love, then give him an idea that will keep his heart beating for just a few moments more”. This book will keep your heart beating for a very long time.
This is a stunningly beautiful – yet disturbing – dreamlike book. It shows that even in the midst of the most appalling atrocities that man has committed against man, there is hope, love, kindness and beauty alongside the pain, horror and loss.
This is a book about coming to term with the past – as former victim, as perpetrator, and as active or passive witness.
After the Holocaust, Wolf – a young Jewish man who had escaped to America – returns to his old home near Bialystok in Poland to find it utterly changed. While some of the faces are familiar, he is no longer welcome: “They take note of him, the stranger, who is detectable immediately as an outsider, but who is also as familiar as any other resident of the town. The face that has come back to haunt them”. He discovers “his hometown, which was once more than fifty percent Jewish, was now a place inhabited by half a world, half a heart, and most terribly, only half a soul”. “Everyone who knew me and loved me is gone. First there was death, and then there weren’t any people anymore. Now there are new people who want to forget that the old people were ever there”.
The voices of the living and the dead are given equal weight, and the narrations slip effortlessly between the two, as well as across timelines. Before, during and after the war meld into one. Where there are “no other options but to exist in between”.
Apart from Wolf, there is a large group of characters inhabiting this dream world: Rachelka and the other Sarahs in the school, German soldiers trying to get home, the old man – Wiktor – and his family, a young orphan boy, Olga, Anna and Maryna, and a small dog, as well as a cast of other Poles. All the stories are interwoven.
Wiktor acts as a guide and protector. Although the young boy is starving and alone, he possesses a “magic pill” that makes everything better, and he is desperate to pass on his good luck: “because it is important to share, because I can see that you need rescuing, too”. He is eternally optimistic and acts as a talisman – of hope for a better future: “I don’t know why, but I know that even while I sleep on the grass beneath the bridge, I am never truly alone. There is always another day, always a pigeon to nestle in my arms, always a chance to begin again”. Anna uses her imagination to escape the horror of her existence where she felt “like a cloistered witness to the end of a world”, and the guilt of her survival.
Everyone has lost someone and some intangible part of their soul. The book looks at mourning and the comfort of ritual prayer as ways of overcoming the loss, and as tools enabling passing on. The dead appear more at peace than the living – their pain is over. Which comes across as a wonderful consoling thought – That there IS a light at the end of the tunnel.
The language is poetic and paints emotionally very intensive, though visually opaque, scenes: “In this region of Poland daylight can seem like a pale and hallucinatory dream, so white that it is as if God were trying to erase the world”. My impression of the book was that it all took place in varying shades of grey, through a metaphorical mist. If the book is ever filmed – it cannot be done in colour.
This is a magical book that is experienced rather than simply read. Your emotions are pulled all over the place. Even writing this review I am welling up, as I remember what I have absorbed.
“You can change a person’s language. You can take from him everything material, and yet you must leave him something to love. And if there is no person left for him to love, then give him an idea that will keep his heart beating for just a few moments more”. This book will keep your heart beating for a very long time.
August 8, 2016
In the case of Julia Ain-Krupa’s upcoming The Upright Heart, I find myself once again in the situation where what I was expecting based on the description provided and what I actually got were two very different things. Yet, when I went back to the description it actually is very close to the story being told in the novel—it just didn’t prepare me at all for the way that story was going to be presented. Luckily, in this case the surprising difference between expectation and reality worked in the novel’s favor, and I can’t honestly think of a much better way that the book’s description could prepare the reader for the way the narrative unfolds.
In the years following World War II, the people of Poland—both living and dead—struggle to make peace with all that transpired. Wolf married and moved to America before the war while the rest of his family were killed in the war; he returns to his hometown to see what is left and to say the prayers for the dead in the hope he and they may rest easier. On another plane, his first love Olga—a Catholic who helped hide his family as long as she could—clings to him when he reappears; she is unable to move on but isn’t sure why. A young woman, Anna, sees and feels the spirits of the dead around her, uncertain whether the people she sees are among the living or the dead; she is also haunted by memories of her former coworker, a woman who concealed her Jewish identity when they both worked as maids in the household of the governor general’s subordinate. Wiktor and his family survived the war but an on-the-job accident shortly after its end leaves Wiktor’s family mourning his loss while his spirit seeks to assist the spirits of others who have been having trouble moving on.
For my full review, please visit my blog:
http://wp.me/pUEx4-LK
In the years following World War II, the people of Poland—both living and dead—struggle to make peace with all that transpired. Wolf married and moved to America before the war while the rest of his family were killed in the war; he returns to his hometown to see what is left and to say the prayers for the dead in the hope he and they may rest easier. On another plane, his first love Olga—a Catholic who helped hide his family as long as she could—clings to him when he reappears; she is unable to move on but isn’t sure why. A young woman, Anna, sees and feels the spirits of the dead around her, uncertain whether the people she sees are among the living or the dead; she is also haunted by memories of her former coworker, a woman who concealed her Jewish identity when they both worked as maids in the household of the governor general’s subordinate. Wiktor and his family survived the war but an on-the-job accident shortly after its end leaves Wiktor’s family mourning his loss while his spirit seeks to assist the spirits of others who have been having trouble moving on.
For my full review, please visit my blog:
http://wp.me/pUEx4-LK
September 15, 2016
This is not an easy read. In fact I had to read it twice to really understand it, but on the second reading I found it particularly rewarding – whereas on the first I sometimes found myself confused. The narrative structure is quite complex, with a number of interrelated stories interwoven one with another and on occasion no immediate indication as to who is speaking. But perseverance pays off, because it’s a haunting and heart-breaking work of insight and empathy which moved me very much. Dreamlike and lyrical, this poignant novel tells of the return of a young man, Wolf, to his native Krakow, not long after the war, on a sort of pilgrimage in honour of the family he left behind and his lover Olga, all of whom perished in the holocaust. Those still alive are haunted by the dead, but equally the dead are haunted by the living, and until they are able to let go of their lives are doomed to exist in a sort of twilight zone where they can see and hear but be neither seen nor heard. It’s an original approach to Holocaust storytelling and I found it both compelling and convincing. Some of those voices still linger in my mind, especially the group of schoolgirls who were so cruelly murdered. There is some sort of hope and redemption in the book, but it’s hard won and the enormous emotional power of this short novel had a great impact on me.
October 12, 2024
I think authors write about the Holocaust and readers keep reading about the Holocaust because there is no coming to terms with a crime so massive, so damaging. Every novel is a fresh perspective on an event that will always shape humanity. That said, Julia Ain-Krupa’s The Upright Heart is one of the most unusual perspectives I’ve yet seen in Holocaust fiction. Instead of replicating history, this novel is a ghost story, with the dead place as much or more of a role than the living...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from Edelweiss for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from Edelweiss for review consideration.
August 4, 2016
This novel got to be a bit much for me. It's short so I finished it but it's not one I enjoyed. I've read other books with this theme and Wolf is not a badly drawn character. My problem was with the philosophical language and in part this could be because it's not a light summer book but more a thoughtful meditation on survivor guilt. Thanks to edelweiss for the ARC.
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December 14, 2016"Julia Ain-Krupa's demanding and rewarding novel uncovers the apocalypse of Europe after the Holocaust." Review by Philip K. Jason for the Jewish Book Council.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews