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.

October 15, 2016
Two boys flee the 1956 Russian occupation of Budapest.Robert and Attila (named for the Hun) Beck are brothers, ages 9.8 and 13.7, respectively, according to the ever precise Robert, who narrates this circuitous but fervent novel. Kertes (Gratitude, 2009), winner of the National Jewish Book Award, begins his newest work in his own native Budapest. It's 1956, and Russian soldiers have invaded the city to quash the Hungarian Revolution. With their family, the Beck brothers flee across the border, eventually landing in Paris. But their journey isn't merely a geographical one. As they travel, Robert and Attila begin to uncover secrets about their Jewish family's past. Those secrets revolve around a pair of mysterious figures: Raoul Wallenberg and Paul Beck. Here, Kertes is revisiting characters from his previous book, Gratitude, and perhaps for that reason, the material occasionally feels predigested. But Robert and Attila are a winning pair of guides. They are exposed to childbirth as well as to violence and death, experiences that are particularly dismaying for Robert, the wide-eyed younger brother. Meanwhile, Attila tries to make sense of things. Robert looks on as Attila grapples with skeins of tangled questions, which range in subject from the design of the human body to the meaning of God's omniscience. He muses, "Did the Lord think up everything at once because he is omniscient? I guess I'm saying, how does that work--being omniscient, I mean? Did he start out, as a baby God, being somewhat omniscient? Did he start out as God of the Milky Way, only later to become God of the whole universe?" But when Attila and Robert ask their grandmother about the family's wartime experiences, the boys are told: "News like that can wait." There is, it seems, a limit to knowledge. Oddly, it is Attila's flights of questions, and the final unveiling of those wartime secrets, that form the most vivid parts of this novel. On the other hand, the present day--1956, when Russian soldiers have beset Budapest--carries the watery tint of unreality. Kertes' voice is a lyrical one, and his work is frequently moving, but long passages seem to wash by without fully convincing the reader they've actually happened.

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Starred review from 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

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2016
Nine-year-old Robert's older brother, Attila, is irrepressible, even as a revolution forces the family from Hungary. The 13-year-old directs a barrage of questions to almost everyone the brothers meet on their dangerous journey out of Budapest in 1956, from a bishop at a convent where they find shelter to a master perfumer sharing their bus ride to Paris. But his most pressing interrogations are directed at his own family members, about the mystery swirling around their cousin and his actions during WWII, and how their family was able to survive when so many Jews were slain. Seen through Robert's eyes, Attila is almost a force of nature, such a whirlwind of curiosity and emotion that Robert is amazed by how quickly his brother can fall asleep. Kertes, who himself escaped Hungary after the 1956 revolution, delivers a fast-paced and taut narrative that captures how inscrutable the world's cruelties can be to the children who witness them. Stirring and haunting, The Afterlife of Stars memorably shows how the bonds of brotherhood stay strong in a crisis.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)