The Afterlife of Stars

January 19, 2015
In telling the story of two brothers fleeing Hungary with their family, Kertes (Gratitude) focuses more on their emotional and intellectual journey than on the actual events unfolding around them. Nine-year old Robert and 13-year-old Attila are forced to flee as Russian forces move into Budapest in 1956 to crush the Hungarian revolution. Their Jewish family hopes to make it to Paris where their great-aunt Hermina lives. During their dangerous trek, the boys ponder the world around them. As the brothers and their family deal with death and the revealing of family secrets, they are brought together and torn apart until they are ultimately broken by tragedy. Though this book has a very interesting story line, it is often overwhelmed by the brothers' thoughts and musings, the deep philosophical nature of which seem rather unrealistic coming from two young boys. The story has great potential, but lacks the historical substance that might have helped balance and ground the philosophical ponderings. Agent: Jackie Kaiser, Westwood Creative Artists.

Two boys are at the center of this audiobook about a family that flees the Soviet crackdown that ended the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Robert, the narrator of the novel, is 9.8 years old; Attila is 13.7. Their flight, marked by both tragedy and comedy, takes them to Paris and to a deeper understanding of their family's history and what the Nazis did to them. This is a powerful novel, but narrator Tristan Morris adopts a Hungarian accent for the dialogue. Rather than enhancing the audiobook, the accent is a layer of distraction that listeners have to cut through to find the story. Morris would have done better without it. G.S.D. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

November 1, 2016

In 1956 the Beck family flees Hungary. The Soviet Union has just sent in troops to quell a rebellion, and the Jewish Becks, who only survived the Holocaust through the assistance of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and his right-hand man, Paul Beck, are looking for a new life in Canada. The Beck sons, 13-year-old Attila and nine-year-old Robert, are very close, with Attila taking the lead and his brother following in his wake. On a stopover in Paris, Attila is convinced that their cousin Paul, who has been missing for a decade and was last seen in the city, is hiding here. Attila knows no boundaries as he opens his family's cache of secret letters and steals what he can to find his relative. However, the Soviets are also searching for Paul. VERDICT This follow-up to Kertes's National Jewish Book Award--winning Gratitude, which focused on Paul's efforts in the rescue of the Hungarian Jews during World War II, is a beautifully written story of brotherly love, family, and the intersection of history in the 20th century. [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/16.]--Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

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