The Zone of Interest

Starred review from July 21, 2014
An absolute soul-crusher of a book, the brilliant latest from Amis (Lionel Asbo: State of England) is an astoundingly bleak love story, as it were, set in a German concentration camp, which Thomsen, one of the book’s three narrators, refers to as Kat Zet. Thomsen, the nephew of Hitler’s private secretary, Martin Bormann, has a vague role as a liaison at Buna Werke, where the Germans are attempting to synthesize oil for the war effort using slave labor. He sets his sights on Hannah Doll, wife of camp commandant Paul, who is the second of three narrators as well as a drunk whose position is under threat. As Thomsen gets closer with Hannah, both of them, horrified at what’s going on, conspire to undermine Paul—Hannah at home and Thomsen around the camp. Paul, meanwhile, follows up his suspicions about his wife and Thomsen by involving Szmul, the book’s third narrator and a Jew who disposes of the corpses in the gas chamber, in a revenge plot. Amis took on the Holocaust obliquely in Time’s Arrow. Here he goes at it straight, and the result is devastating.

Sean Barrett narrates the stories of Paul Doll, commandant of Auschwitz; Major Golo Thomsen; and Szmul, head of the Sonderkommando. Told from three different German perspectives, this novel describes the last years of WWII and the fatal decisions made regarding Jews in the concentration camps. The horror of the camps is interlaced with Thomsen's sexual fantasies for all women, German and Jewish alike, but most especially Hannah Doll. Barrett uses a soft British accent for all the characters, with subtle inflections for French and German words. His lack of vocal differentiation makes it difficult to tell the characters apart. Another problem is that his deep voice becomes inaudible as he reads asides, tangential comments, and the words of the Jewish collaborator. The graphic nature of this Holocaust story and Barrett's fluctuating tones combine to make this a difficult listen for even the strongest souls. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine