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All The Broken Places: The Sequel to The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

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In the self-serving afterword here Boyne essentially repeats that he writes about Nazis so as to humanise them, “exploring emotional truths and authentic human experiences”. Setting aside his total inability to render human experience as anything other than a Hallmark card, he’s fundamentally wrong: the purpose of Holocaust education should not be to recognise the good in bad people, but to recognise the bad inside good people. Boyne’s Gretel represents entire generations of Germans. Despite far-reaching efforts to come to terms with their terrible past in the post-war decades, Germans’ embrace of self-interested silence remains the rule rather than the exception. Under an assumed name, Gretel tries to reinvent herself, but is haunted by her past wherever she goes. We witness her being violently humiliated in France and fatefully crossing paths with a childhood love interest – a Nazi soldier – in Australia, causing her to flee to London. Before she starts dating the man who becomes her husband, she dates his Jewish friend, who lost his family in Treblinka. When she confesses her identity, he tells her to burn in hell and takes off to America. Gretel has a breakdown when her son is nine, the age at which her brother died. She spends a year in a psychiatric ward without confessing the source of her trauma to a doctor. In 2019, he found himself at the sharp end of social media ire with his young adult book exploring trans issues, My Brother’s Name is Jessica.

In Gretel, Boyne has created a magnificently dyspeptic protagonist whose self-assurance, sharp tongue and wry humor are at odds with her private agony.” year old Greta is reflecting on her life. Her shame and guilt that has followed her as her father was a nazi commandment of one of the internment camps. How at 12 years of age, she and her mother escaped to Paris, with new identities, afraid they would be discovered for their own complicity in war crimes. Kitsch has indeed come to dominate the field – from the Broadway adaptation of the Diary of Anne Frank to Schindler’s List. At the other end of the spectrum, masterpieces, often by survivors – Primo Levi, Paul Celan, Jean Améry – tend towards aesthetic and intellectual rigour, resisting closure and withholding comfort. Much of so-called “Holocaust fiction” is aimed at children and included in the “Holocaust curricula” that are mandatory in many jurisdictions, though fatally handicapped by a refusal to show children violence or even darkness. In the years since Kertész’s essay, however, a micro-genre of Holocaust fiction for adults has proliferated: The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Librarian of Auschwitz, The Violinist of Auschwitz. Unlike the children’s fare, these have no excuse for their optimism. Originally I imagined her being a much more angry person but, as it turned out, when I wrote she was more introspective and calm,” he said. “In a strange way, it was a very pleasurable book to write. It flowed, despite the dark subject matter, perhaps because I’ve been living with this family for the guts of 20 years.”He also justified his decisions by reasoning that a novel like his shouldn’t be the basis for Holocaust instruction. Of course, commercial publishing has always responded to reader trends, and these days can rush out similar novels as fast as high street fashion reproduces copycat catwalk looks. Boyne hopes today’s ambitious debut novels by young writers “can be retrieved once publishing becomes courageous once again”. John Boyne studied English literature at Trinity College Dublin and creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He is now the author of 21 books. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill From the New York Times bestselling author John Boyne, a stunning tour de force about a woman who must confront the sins of her own terrible past, and a present in which it is never too late for bravery

Will her secret stay a secret, or will she chose to help a little boy is the issue she faces with the knowledge it could blow her world apart?With that, Boyne has taken us into the heart of his other main activity in the recent past: being someone who, depending on your perspective, either attracts – or courts – controversy. When is a monster's child culpable? Guilt and complicity are multifaceted. John Boyne is a maestro of historical fiction. You can't prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel." - John Irving, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The World According to Garp Gretel is an interesting proposition for the reader. You have to ask yourself how complicit she was while living in Auschwitz. How much did she know, and how much is she telling us? I think that will affect your opinion of the book - I felt that she was young when it happened, though she could have come forward to the authorities earlier. But she's kind and thoughtful and at times has tried to do good in her life. She's also funny and strong-willed, but complicated. Very human, in other words. In nearly every stage of her life, Gretel keeps her past a secret—both out of shame and out of fear for her own safety. If you were able to speak with Gretel at any point in her life, what would you say to her about her choice to stay silent? What would you say to her after she finally comes forward with the truth?

Only in the last years have grandchildren of Nazi perpetrators begun to break the silence on their family history in a way their parents could not. Leading the way is Alexandra Senfft – a close friend of this reporter’s – whose grandfather Hanns Ludin was Nazi governor in occupied Slovakia. Over years, I have helped a number of young and new writers and what I have discovered, to my disappointment, is that they will all turn on you when the crowd turns on you,” he said. “Writers I considered friends, whom I trusted, who turned on me in difficult moments and refused to use their voice to tell the world who I actually am and who the social media world pretends I am. That level of cowardice and betrayal disappoints me the most.”Boyne delivers a seemingly redundant adult sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas...Boyne creates vivid characters, but a certain thematic obviousness dilutes the dramatic effect. Fans of the first book may enjoy revisiting the material as adults, but this doesn't quite land on its own." - Publishers Weekly

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