Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Historical adventure fiction

THE LIVING AND THE LOST

Ellen Feldman

From the author of PARIS NEVER LEAVES YOU, a gripping story of a young German Jewish woman who returns to Allied Occupied Berlin from America to face the past and unexpected future.

Millie (Meike) Mosbach and her brother David, manage to escape to the States just before Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister in Berlin. Millie attends Bryn Mawr on a special scholarship for non-Aryan German girls and graduates to a magazine job in Philadelphia. David enlists in the army and is eventually posted to the top-secret Camp Ritchie in Maryland, which trains German-speaking men for intelligence work. Now they are both back in their former hometown, haunted by ghosts and hoping against hope to find their family. Millie, works in the office responsible for rooting out the most dedicated Nazis from publishing; she is consumed with rage at her former country and its citizens, though she is finding it more difficult to hate in proximity. David works trying to help displaced persons build new lives, while hiding his more radical nighttime activities from his sister. Like most of their German-born American colleagues, they suffer from conflicts of rage and guilt at their own good fortune, except for Millie's boss, Major Harry Sutton, who seems much too eager to be fair to the Germans. Living and working in bombed-out Berlin, a latter day Wild West where drunken soldiers brawl; the desperate prey on the unsuspecting; spies ply their trade; werewolves, as unrepentant Nazis were called, scheme to rise again; black markets thrive, and forbidden fraternization is rampant, Millie must come to terms with a decision she made as a girl in a moment of crisis, and with the enigmatic sometimes infuriating Major Sutton who is mysteriously understanding of her demons. Atmospheric and page-turning, THE LIVING AND THE LOST is a story of love, survival, and forgiveness of others and of self. Ellen Feldman, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Paris Never Leaves You, Terrible Virtue, The Unwitting, Next to Love, Scottsboro (shortlisted for the Orange Prize), The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank (translated into nine languages), and Lucy. Her novel, Terrible Virtue, was optioned by Black Bicycle for a feature film.

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Book Published 2021-09-07 by St. Martin's Griffin

Comments

What a story, it is so vividly told, I felt like I was there with the protagonists in post war Berlin, I could feel their anger and pain as if it were my own. This is a powerful, incredible story.

The Living and the Lost is a powerful, unsettling read. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres, especially books set during WW2. This is one of the few books that I've read set just after the war ended. The descriptions are so real that I felt transported to post war Berlin. I liked the way the author alternated back in time to tell Millie's back story. This would make a great literature tie-in for a high school world history class, sparking lively class discussions.

In her new novel Ellen Feldman creates an indelible portrait of post-war Berlin and of a woman who returns, under the guise of working for the American government, to search for her family. Millie is a complicated heroine who seldom acts in her own best interests yet never loses our sympathy. THE LIVING AND THE LOST is a deeply satisfying and truly adult novel.

Beautifully written, rich with detail and a brilliantly drawn cast of characters, THE LIVING AND THE LOST is a culmination of Feldman's extraordinary powers as a writer with an unrivaled grasp of history and the human heart.

I have read many books centered around the Holocaust and World War II but this was something different. This story is told from the perspective of a young woman who had the chance to leave Germany and return at a later date. Seeing the devastating aftermath of the Holocaust through the eyes of a Jewish woman was an eye-opener and made me wonder how those who returned to Germany in the aftermath of World War II felt about going home.

This book was truly heart breaking. I cannot imagine myself in any of the characters positions, especially Millie or Anna. I get where Millie and David both are coming from, but really what choice did they have. Some sacrifices had to be made during this time in history. I don't want to give anything away so sorry this is a short review, but readers really just need to pick up this book!!

A beautiful, atmospheric novel that transports us to Occupied Berlin, a perfect setting in which to examine the contours of shame, as well as the harshness of simplistic assumptions and knee-jerk judgment. Through the eyes and heart of Millie, we consider the pain of turning away, of betrayal, and the price survival exacts. The crisp, smart dialogue adds to the delight.

How does anyone survive after trauma? Not so easily for Feldman's German born heroine, Millie, reentering a 1945 Berlin that's still reeling from the war's wreckage even as the Nazis struggle to rise again. Not so easily in America, either, where Jewish refugees struggle with survivor's guilt and overwhelming grief. A gorgeous, shattering novel that could not be more timely about the dark damage of hatred and the persistence of love.

This book is why I have bags under my eyes this morning - I started it and stayed up late to finish it and kept hubby up talking about it. This book is searingly excellent and a definite read for historical fiction fans, book clubs and general readers. The characters are well fleshed out, the plot enjoyable (despite the atrocities of war) and I will recommend this book to patrons, friends, book clubs and complete strangers on mass transit. Read. This. Book.

Ellen Feldman masters the two great challenges of the historical novel in The Living and the Lost, mapping the human heart as expertly as she does another time and place. Her story of a Jewish American woman returning to the ruined, postwar Berlin she was forced to leave as a teenager sears, uplifts, and compels. A terrific read, brilliantly written.