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The Book of Dirt

Bram Presser (Goodreads Author)

really liked it 4.00 · Rating details · 299 ratings · 78 reviews

They chose not to speak and now they are gone…What’s left to fill the silence is no longer theirs. This is my story, woven from the threads of rumour and legend.

Jakub Rand flees his village for Prague, only to find himself trapped by the Nazi occupation. Deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, he is forced to sort through Jewish books for a so-called Museum of t ...more

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Paperback, 336 pages

Published August 28th 2017 by Text Publishing

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May 23, 2017 Text Publishing rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, australian

The following book reviews have been shared by Text Publishing – publisher of The Book of Dirt

‘The Book of Dirt is both a loving, honest portrayal of lives that would have been erased, and an incorporation of the broader lessons of their experience into contemporary mythology. It keeps the discussion about trauma, memory, and intergenerational acts of transfer alive for those generations that follow, that risk forgetting. It is a potent achievement for a debut novel.’
Sydney Review of Books

‘A g ...more

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Feb 13, 2018 Cass Moriarty rated it it was amazing

The cover of The Book of Dirt (Text Publishing 2017), the debut novel by Bram Presser, features a ring – a plain gold band – surrounded by a small pile of dirt. The ring – and the dirt – may look inconsequential, but in fact both represent significant themes of belonging, survival and connection. The Book of Dirt is Bram Presser’s story of his own Jewish history. He has taken family tales and legends, and woven these together with extensive archival research, to create a novel that is part fact, The cover of The Book of Dirt (Text Publishing 2017), the debut novel by Bram Presser, features a ring – a plain gold band – surrounded by a small pile of dirt. The ring – and the dirt – may look inconsequential, but in fact both represent significant themes of belonging, survival and connection. The Book of Dirt is Bram Presser’s story of his own Jewish history. He has taken family tales and legends, and woven these together with extensive archival research, to create a novel that is part fact, part fiction; part remembered, part imagined.
The book assembles a large cast of characters but focusses primarily on Bram Presser’s grandfather, Jakub Rand, and his grandmother, Dasa Roubicek. These two families experienced the worst of the Holocaust, and many family members did not survive. For those who did, the pain and emotional suffering of that period ran deep in their veins.
From the beginning, we get a sense that this will be a story with a difference. We start in a small village somewhere on the borders of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and as we are introduced to each of the villagers and given a vignette of their simple lives, we are also provided with an account of how they will prematurely perish, most because of the conflict. This straightforward and vivid representation – an entire life, there and gone in an instant – makes for sobering reading, and sets the scene for a story that is ultimately about the transience of life, the inevitability of death, and the arbitrariness of one person’s survival over another.
Jakub Rand, imprisoned by the Nazis in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, is forced to classify Jewish books and artefacts for the Museum of the Extinct Race. In one holy book, he finds a hollowed space containing a small pile of dirt. The simultaneous story is of Frantiska Roubickova, regretting her decision to convert from Catholicism to Judaism, and despairing about the fates of her husband and two of her daughters (one being Dasa) who have been deported. Bram Presser grew up hearing stories about the tragedy of his forebears, about the losses they endured, and who survived (and how), and it is armed with this mostly oral knowledge that he goes in search of answers to his many questions. The truth, it seems, is slippery, and official records elusive or inconclusive. But nevertheless, the book is punctuated with photocopies of documents and letters, of photographs and maps, of correspondence between him and various authorities, augmented by other documents that he has fictionalised to ornament the story. He has taken rumour and legend, family lore and oral histories, and attempted to substantiate where he could with facts and evidence; the remainder he has reimagined as to how he believes the story could have unfolded.
He writes about the process of correction, and this entire book is a labour of correction, of hearing stories, confirming facts, uncovering alternate versions, correcting the sway of the story as he goes. You can see the effort he has expended in attempting to find the truth; the love between his grandparents shines through like a beacon; his anger at the senseless violence and annihilation of war is strong.
In the opening pages, he says ‘Within a few generations almost all of us will have been forgotten. Those who are not will have no bearing on how we are remembered, who we once were. We will not be there to protest, to correct.’ How true. And yet by writing this story, Bram Presser has determined that the fate of certain individuals – his grandfather, his grandmother – will not be forgotten and consigned to history’s amnesia, but will remain alive on the page, the written word ensuring that their lives are remembered, all the messy, dirty and harsh reality as well as the hopeful, persistent instinct of survival. In setting out to recover his grandfather, Bram Presser has dug his archaeological tools into the unsettling layers of our history and carefully brushed the dirt from precious artefacts from the past. He has delved into this mission open to any possibilities. And like many accounts of the terrible crimes of the Holocaust, this book speaks not only of the horrors of that time, but of the stories of great strength and survival, peppered by small acts of human kindness, that remind us of the resilience and courage of ordinary people. ...more

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Sep 01, 2017 Marianne rated it really liked it

“I clicked on the most obvious icon, the Yad Vashem Shoah Names Database and typed in Jakub Rand. They all jumped out at me at once, an explosion of Jakub Rands, as if I had released their souls from the dusty white box that whirred innocuously beside me.”

The Book Of Dirt is the first novel by Australian author, Bram Presser. In 1996, Jakub Rand lost the will to live, mere weeks after his wife, Dasa died. Both were Jews, from Prague; both had lived in the Theresienstadt ghetto during the German ...more

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Jul 14, 2018 Michael Livingston rated it really liked it

A moving and enthralling piece of work - part family memoir, part novel, it's as heartbreaking as you'd imagine. ...more

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Feb 12, 2019 Jaclyn (sixminutesforme) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: auslit

The Book of Dirt is a work of historical fiction, but based on the true story of Presser’s own grandparents and his search to find out what happened to them. His note at the end of the novel explains the factual basis, namely an article that was published about his grandfather, and then the improvisations he made based on research and correspondence he located.

I was thoroughly captivated by this novel - Presser writes so eloquently and immediately anchors the reader within the narrative. While a ...more

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May 30, 2018 Adam Rapoport rated it it was amazing

That was brilliant.

Complex without being convoluted, moving without being maudlin, the book worked for me on a number of levels, not least the prose, which was rich and literary without at all being a Nabakovian wankfest. In other words, it was a servant to the plot, characters and atmosphere, without fanfare or self-consciousness. Unlike most of my reviews.

The attempt to interweave history, memory, investigation and myth was probably more likely to go horribly wrong than right, but the fact t ...more

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Jan 23, 2018 Ari rated it it was amazing

Typically I don't write reviews. Most of the books I cherish already have hundreds or thousands of them already - so what can I add? But I'm making an exception for the Book of Dirt, because it's a new release from a new author, and it is unquestionably brilliant, and (for this alone it warrants a review) it is unique.

What starts out as something of an autobiographical detective story - the author trying to sort out what happened to his grandfather during the Holocaust, and his part in the so-ca ...more

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Dec 29, 2018 Nicole Beaudry rated it it was amazing

Shelves: jpl, adult, jewish-fiction, history

Bram Presser's The Book of Dirt is part memoir, part novel, part genealogical archeology. He scrapes away at the layers of myth and legend to come to terms with, and reveal, the time spent in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz-Birkenau by his grandfather and grandmother, Jakub Rand and Daša Roubíčková. It is a moving work, layered, piecing together family story with Jewish myth and legend. I am hard-pressed to say more about the work, because I feel, as an archivist and librarian privileged to work wi ...more

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May 23, 2018 Tundra rated it really liked it

A beautiful tribute to his family. Presser has delicately woven fiction into his historical research and managed to maintain a sense of integrity which ensures his family will not be lost to memory.

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Nov 21, 2017 Hazel Edwards rated it really liked it

‘Faction’ is the dramatic technique of blending facts into readable stories, especially where there may be gaps of ignorance on the part of potential audiences or it’s just not possible to find out.
‘The Book of Dirt’ is a significant work of faction. The title refers to the little that is left of even a significant life unless memories are captured in artforms and passed on. Presser uses the term ‘golem’ and applies it as a symbol in his novel and his quest for his grandfather’s past.
Presser is ‘Faction’ is the dramatic technique of blending facts into readable stories, especially where there may be gaps of ignorance on the part of potential audiences or it’s just not possible to find out.
‘The Book of Dirt’ is a significant work of faction. The title refers to the little that is left of even a significant life unless memories are captured in artforms and passed on. Presser uses the term ‘golem’ and applies it as a symbol in his novel and his quest for his grandfather’s past.
Presser is examining a universal dilemma, of family moral inheritances but within the Jewish cultural context.
I’m not Jewish. I know and admire Bram Presser as a compassionate man and good wordsmith, so my review comes from a different perspective: the mainstream reader who is also a writer aware of the challenges of family histories.
As an author, I’m conscious of the difficulties of crafting material which some readers may consider contentious, especially in dealing with how ancestors may have acted or even re-acted in extreme circumstances.
Structurally, the real story is the author’s poignant quest for his grandfather’s history within the Holocaust survivor conflict and the universal challenge of facing facts which may dispute family myths.
My qualm about this BIG novel:
It assumes familiarity with the language of a culture and doesn’t always explain the context for a reader who is outside that community. Some books are legitimately therapy for the writer, but others need to craft for an audience.
‘Holocast’ history can be overwhelming and participants, especially victims, cannot speak. So their descendants have that role, but what should they say and in what format? And to whom?
Few know their real families’ past beyond a generation back. Fragmentary anecdotes. Most families are refugees from elsewhere. And if grandparents have lived through the destruction of war, records are lost. Others may never have known their relatives who died in concentration camps. Children and grandchildren of survivors have special challenges.
Most biographers face the problem of what to include from the mass of hard accumulated data, and what to leave out. The inclusion of Presser’s rare family photos help personalize ‘The Book of Dirt’. Presser also includes a Guide to Czech Pronunciation, a Glossary of Hebrew and Czech words, and several maps at the back. These are helpful but often read afterwards.
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being that is magically created entirely from inanimate matter (specifically clay or mud). The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in medieval writing. Frankly I had to check that out. Presser has used the golem symbol in his novel but his story has been crafted across years of research and re-writing.
It is not amorphous and unformed.
Passages are starkly poetic, especially the opening. And a wealth of careful research and much thought is evident in a range of poignantly written vignettes and cameos set in complex politically changing scenarios. Who shares? Who collaborates? How accurate are records? Whose story survives the bureaucracy of death? Is fear a stronger motive than love?
But the cast is so large, it’s hard for a reader to track the connections and sort the timing and locations. Despite the two pages of cast at the beginning, and maps and notes at the end, it would have been helpful to have locations on chapters. But then the writer’s point is that those villages, towns and camps have changed their names, labels, allegiances and many are now extinct. Hence the reason for this book.
Presser is a persistent researcher. His ‘quest’ for facts provides the heroic journey of the historical detective. That is the real story.
What makes the book significant is Bram Presser’s attempt to come to terms with how quickly memories can be lost. There are some highly quotable philosophical observations. And some poetically written passages. Memorable scenes. But it is the compassion which indicates a significant writer.
Presser has that.
I would have liked more structure, so that it was possible to work out where and who and when. At times, the family connections and time jumps are confusing. But that is what Presser is also exploring. The challenge of documenting the unthinkable and the untraceable.# ...more

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Jun 19, 2018 Lesley Moseley rated it it was ok

Sorry to say , I had skipped too much of the 'golem' and just couldn't work out who was really his grandfather. DNF. ...more

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Sep 11, 2017 Andrew Harris rated it it was amazing

A masterpiece of third-generation Survivor storytelling. A delicately wrought take on the individual nuance of Holocaust experience and the tendency of the passage of time and retelling to neglect that nuance in favour of a simplistic, monolothic and homogeneous communal memory, which in turn eventually denies us the truth. Careful and instructive handling of the Diasporism vs Zionism dialectic contemporary to the historical narrative. Bram's writing channels the characters of his ancestors' los ...more

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Jul 30, 2018 Hermien rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ebooks, wwi-ii, australia, non-fiction

I know part of the story is the writer's interpretation but it worked for me. ...more

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Aug 31, 2017 Edite rated it it was amazing

Could not put it down. Loved every page.

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Jun 25, 2019 Joey Gremillion rated it it was amazing

Superbly written. Mr. Presser’s narrative is stunning

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Nov 11, 2017 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: holocaust, australia, 17review, c21st

One of the most poignant things I've ever seen is a matchbox filled with soil in the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Elsternwick. Signage explains that this soil from the Nazi death camp where her mother was murdered, is the only token that her daughter has in remembrance. She has no photos, nothing in her mother's handwriting, nothing that she ever wore, nothing that she ever treasured, no family recipes, nothing made by her mother's hands. In a museum that has an emotional impact on all who visi One of the most poignant things I've ever seen is a matchbox filled with soil in the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Elsternwick. Signage explains that this soil from the Nazi death camp where her mother was murdered, is the only token that her daughter has in remembrance. She has no photos, nothing in her mother's handwriting, nothing that she ever wore, nothing that she ever treasured, no family recipes, nothing made by her mother's hands. In a museum that has an emotional impact on all who visit, this exhibit is powerful: the existence of a woman that the Nazis sought to obliterate, can never be forgotten by anyone who sees that soil.

Bram Presser is a Melbourne author, and he would certainly have seen that exhibit too. Although his grandparents were Holocaust survivors, he also faced the question of an unknowable past, and he has also, as an act of defiance and homage, refused to let that past fade away. Instead, Presser has used as a literary device the ancient Jewish golem, a clay creature magically brought to life with words - so that his grandparents' lives can be told.

Within a few generations almost all of us will be forgotten. Those who are not will have no bearing on how we are remembered, who we once were. We will not be there to protest, to correct. In the end we might exist only as a prop in someone else's story: a plot device, a golem.

But Jakub Rand and his wife Daša are much more than mere plot devices in The Book of Dirt. When a previously unknown story about his grandfather surfaces after Jakub's death in 1996, here in Melbourne and shortly after the death of Daša, Presser set out on a quest to find out more. But the trail eventually went cold so the book blends fiction and memoir to recreate their story. It is, he says in Chapter One:

This is a book of memories, some my own, some acquired and some, I suppose, imagined.

It begins with a warning, almost everyone you care about in this book is dead. (p.9).

As he shows in his choice of epigraph, he writes in full awareness of his own temerity:
We're constantly correcting, and correcting ourselves, most rigorously because we recognise at every moment that we did it all wrong (wrote it, thought it, made it all wrong), acted all wrong, how we acted all wrong, that everything to this point in time is a falsification, so we correct this falsification, and then we correct the correction of this falsification, and we correct the result of the correction of a correction, and so forth.... (Thomas Bernard, Correction).

So. The book is prefaced by a cast of characters, some of whom are identified as members of the author's family past and present day, and others - such as Štěpánka Tičková, who turns out to be a garrulous and spiteful tattletale, must surely be a marvellous invention.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/11/11/t... ...more

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Dec 30, 2017 Robert Lukins rated it it was amazing

What a beautiful and unique thing this is.

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Feb 23, 2018 John rated it liked it

Deeply moving in parts, and the author’s love for his grandparents and great-grandmother is touching. And it has some beautiful passages. But very episodic and at times highly confusing in its structure. It chopped and changed between events too often and was at times hard to follow.

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Aug 04, 2018 Nick rated it really liked it

Surviving a traumatic event such as the Holocaust is an incredible feat and story by itself, but what author Bram Presser has done is weaved personal family history and engaging fiction into something that transcends the normal historical fiction genre itself. The author knew that his grandfather had been in a concentration camp and had been a teacher there and survived, but then a newspaper article illuminates a more interesting (and possibly unnerving) narrative. Setting out to the uncover the ...more

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Jul 27, 2018 Sara Vidal rated it really liked it

I bought a copy when I went to the launch last year and read it in 3 days. Yes I couldn't put it down. Then, swamped by mixed emotions, I did not feel I could review it. (Jealousy?!?) My book also of holocaust history was soon to be launched and I had taken a different approach. Interestingly on reflection the parts in the book that I related to most were what I had cut out of my book as superfluous to the telling of my parents' story - the uncoverings, dead-ends, surprise discoveries - ie the ' ...more

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Oct 08, 2017 Fiona Blond rated it it was amazing

There are moments when you read something so powerful but all consuming of your heart and spirit that it takes you time to come back to the real world. The Book of Dirt exported me to the place of horror and perseverance that was the war camp of the 1940's. The story was not shocking as the facts are something we are all familiar with but the storylines and way Bram Presser writes is mesmerising. I wanted to let the story go, move on to a more fun novel but I knew that I couldn't leave it alone. ...more

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Oct 02, 2017 Nathan rated it it was amazing

Disclaimer: I know Bram
But also: Within ten pages I completed forgot I knew the author of this book

Formally playful, simultaneously tender and charged with a righteous anger. I’m floored by the soul of this book, by the yearning for history and the bitter strength of survival. We are built upon a foundation of narratives that we can’t know.

A truly beautiful book, this is going to stay with me for a very long time.

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Nov 07, 2017 Luke Terbutt rated it it was amazing

I don't know how to do justice to this book except to suggest you should read it. For what you will find here is a real and, also, fictionalised grace. Bram, as part of his own tale, represents the broad atrocities of the holocaust against the facts (often hidden) and the memories (often suppressed) of his very own family who suffered through it. What he delivers is a rich, imaginative, and deeply felt account. A book at once smart, tender, funny and raw, just like the man who wrote it. ...more

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Jul 15, 2018 Shaun Mason rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Have a read of this story - it grapples with the gaps and the omissions of the past and the difficulties we have in filling them and making sense of them. I loved it.

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Sep 06, 2017 Christine rated it really liked it

Shelves: giveaways-received

The author's journey into family history of Holocaust survivors seems difficult but absolutely worthwhile. A well written book of facts mixed with memory and imagination results in a tale of the past shaping the future for all. ...more

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Apr 09, 2018 Callum Macdonald rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

The Book of Dirt is an immense work - moving, powerful and deeply personal. Congratulations to Bram Presser in achieving this wonderful novel - it will be remembered by many.

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Oct 14, 2018 Wendy rated it it was ok

This was an undisciplined narrative, part fact, part fiction, with chapters that chopped and changed characters and time periods mid-chapter. I had to work hard to figure out who I was reading about and what time period we were in. Maddening.

Also, in his search to fill in his grand-parents story of survival, an almost impossible task, he writes in a circuitous and slow-paced style, which soon felt like a manipulation to me;" if you keep reading you might find out something about how these peopl ...more

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Jun 25, 2018 Corinne rated it it was ok

I found this book very confusing unfortunately and it was a bit of a struggle to finish. I lost the trail of the plot and the cast of characters. A mixture of fiction and non fiction but I wasn’t clear which was which. The book commences with a search to find out the truth of his grandfather’s experience of WW2 and stories of his life but I am not sure we actually discovered the answers .

At the end of the book is a glossary of Czech words and Jewish terms. Obviously would have helped if this wa ...more

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Sep 05, 2017 Daniel rated it it was amazing

An incredible literary achievement from a brilliantly talented Australian author. Presser writes with a unique flair and skill, uncovering the personal and the universal. His prose has a timeless quality that is without affectation. An original and singular voice casting new light on a tragic period in history. While the catalogue of existing fiction about the Holocaust is vast, the Book of Dirt covers aspects and events that may be unfamiliar to many, in a highly original way.

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Oct 23, 2017 Di rated it really liked it

Shelves: historical

Bram has called this fiction and it is a combination of fact and fiction. The book is both an exploration of Bram's journey through place and time to follow the story of his grandfather, holocaust survivor, Jan Randa and also Bram's imagined recreation of the lives of his grandmother, grandfather and their families. ...more

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About Bram Presser

Bram Presser

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Semi-reformed punk rocker, recovering academic, occasional criminal lawyer and one-time cartoon character, Bram Presser was born in Melbourne in 1976. He writes the blog Bait For Bookworms and is a founding member of Melbourne Jewish Book Week. His stories have appeared in Vice Magazine, The Sleepers Almanac, Best Australian Stories, Award Winning Australian Writing and Higher Arc. In 2011, Bram w ...more