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Kindergarten
Page edges tanned. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.
- GenresFiction
152 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 25, 2024
"it is christmas. The frozen image on the screen is of a small girl's face, looking out into the darkness from the window of a Berlin school. She is about to be shot as a hostage if the demands of the terrorists occupying the school are not met.
"In a small Suffolk town, three boys and their German drandmother are celebrating christmas in the traditional German way, by watching, they remember another image: the boys mother lying dead on the concourse of Rome airport, victim of an attack by the very same terrorist organisation.
"In this, his first published novel, P.S. Rushforth's apparently fragmented images of senseless cruelty reach back through to a past both real and mythical - the holocaust of the war, and the savagery of the Brothers Grimm - and build up into a strangely poignant and cohesive metaphor of eternal suffering." From the back cover of the 1981 Abacus edition.
I don't know how to express how wonderful this novel is. When it was first published in 1979 it attracted universal praise:
"The book explores areas which lie, for the most part, beyond our imagination; it carries the reader back towards Hitler's Germany and the heart of 'that dark pathless forest'. Rushforth recreates that inconceivable past and relates it to our constant experiences of loss and grief." The New Statesman
"A very impressive first novel indeed, and one by which I have been both moved and excited. It is quite short but densely packed, and offers such an experience that my own response on finishing it was to turn back to the beginning and immediately start again. It is told with remarkable and incredible artistry." Literary Review
How many ways can I praise this novel? Obviously in almost every way possible, most startlingly in its prescience. A quarter of a century before Beslan he saw the inevitability of school children being used, cynically, by terrorists, government and the media. Twenty five years before statues were erected and the Kindertransport became a cliched trope he wrote of the desperate attempts by German and Austrian Jewish parents to find safety for their children in English schools (please see my footnote *1 below). But really none of that matters because this is an exquisite novel of incredible sensitivity and depth and says more in 150 pages then most New York Times bestsellers or Booker prize winners.
I only discovered this novel, and the author (of which more later), serendipitously via another paperback novel published in 1980 (A standard of Behavior' by William Trevor) which advertisements for other books in it. It is a salutory reminder of the difference between a physical book and an online one.
After publishing this novel P.S. Rushforth didn't publish another novel for twenty five years but 'Pinkerton's Sister' was received just as ecstatically. Unfortunately he died just before his third novel 'A dead Language' came out (check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R... for more information). P.S. Rusfoth is also listed on Goodreads under Peter Rushforth and it is under that name that all his novels, including this one, are listed. As the only other reviews on Goodreads for this novel are posted there I will post my review on both there as well (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...).
I haven't done this novel justice, I don't know how, I just can't stop thinking of it. I recommend it, and the author, without reservation.
Finally this novel was awarded the Hawthorgen prize when it was published. Although not as famous as the Booker it is probably one of the most reliable guides to books worth reading. I strongly recommend checking it out.
*1 He is particularly good in the way he portrays the nightmare bureaucracy that both Germany and Britain imposed and regularly, and arbitrarily, changed to send desperate parents scuttling back to zero on a nightmare snakes and ladders game to save their children ('Everyone Has Their Reasons' by Joseph Matthews is a particularly good portrayal of this from the point of a young Jewish refugee in France).
"In a small Suffolk town, three boys and their German drandmother are celebrating christmas in the traditional German way, by watching, they remember another image: the boys mother lying dead on the concourse of Rome airport, victim of an attack by the very same terrorist organisation.
"In this, his first published novel, P.S. Rushforth's apparently fragmented images of senseless cruelty reach back through to a past both real and mythical - the holocaust of the war, and the savagery of the Brothers Grimm - and build up into a strangely poignant and cohesive metaphor of eternal suffering." From the back cover of the 1981 Abacus edition.
I don't know how to express how wonderful this novel is. When it was first published in 1979 it attracted universal praise:
"The book explores areas which lie, for the most part, beyond our imagination; it carries the reader back towards Hitler's Germany and the heart of 'that dark pathless forest'. Rushforth recreates that inconceivable past and relates it to our constant experiences of loss and grief." The New Statesman
"A very impressive first novel indeed, and one by which I have been both moved and excited. It is quite short but densely packed, and offers such an experience that my own response on finishing it was to turn back to the beginning and immediately start again. It is told with remarkable and incredible artistry." Literary Review
How many ways can I praise this novel? Obviously in almost every way possible, most startlingly in its prescience. A quarter of a century before Beslan he saw the inevitability of school children being used, cynically, by terrorists, government and the media. Twenty five years before statues were erected and the Kindertransport became a cliched trope he wrote of the desperate attempts by German and Austrian Jewish parents to find safety for their children in English schools (please see my footnote *1 below). But really none of that matters because this is an exquisite novel of incredible sensitivity and depth and says more in 150 pages then most New York Times bestsellers or Booker prize winners.
I only discovered this novel, and the author (of which more later), serendipitously via another paperback novel published in 1980 (A standard of Behavior' by William Trevor) which advertisements for other books in it. It is a salutory reminder of the difference between a physical book and an online one.
After publishing this novel P.S. Rushforth didn't publish another novel for twenty five years but 'Pinkerton's Sister' was received just as ecstatically. Unfortunately he died just before his third novel 'A dead Language' came out (check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R... for more information). P.S. Rusfoth is also listed on Goodreads under Peter Rushforth and it is under that name that all his novels, including this one, are listed. As the only other reviews on Goodreads for this novel are posted there I will post my review on both there as well (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...).
I haven't done this novel justice, I don't know how, I just can't stop thinking of it. I recommend it, and the author, without reservation.
Finally this novel was awarded the Hawthorgen prize when it was published. Although not as famous as the Booker it is probably one of the most reliable guides to books worth reading. I strongly recommend checking it out.
*1 He is particularly good in the way he portrays the nightmare bureaucracy that both Germany and Britain imposed and regularly, and arbitrarily, changed to send desperate parents scuttling back to zero on a nightmare snakes and ladders game to save their children ('Everyone Has Their Reasons' by Joseph Matthews is a particularly good portrayal of this from the point of a young Jewish refugee in France).
April 7, 2026
It is a flawed gem of a book. A devastating examination of personal grief and the tragedy of state sponsored terror. Impossible to look away but so sad
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews