A Boy in Winter

July 1, 2017
Three very bad days in the Ukraine, November 1941.Seiffert's (The Walk Home, 2014, etc.) contribution to the ever growing shelf of Holocaust fiction provides an emotional close-up of the experiences of several characters in a small Ukrainian town on the day the German troops arrive to round up the Jews, the day the nightmare begins in earnest: a brave, desperate teenage boy who runs off at dawn with his younger brother hours before their other family members are herded with every other Jew in the area into a holding pen. A young woman from the surrounding countryside whose boyfriend has finally returned from service with the defeated Russian troops. That beaten, desperate young man himself, who has no idea what's coming when he next signs up with the Germans. A German engineer who has taken on a road-building project out here in the boonies, naively thinking it will allow him to avoid involvement in the worst crimes of the Reich. As the SS troops storm into town, unleashing a torrent of madness, terror, and murder, the main characters are forced into the most difficult and most important decisions they will ever make. Of course their paths will cross. Of course at least one of them will make a serious mistake. It seems wrong to call a Holocaust novel predictable; the reason we keep retelling and rehearing this story is not because we don't know how it ends. It is because we do. This novel allows the reader to imagine and to empathize, to have a vivid moral experience, while managing to avoid the surfeit of violent, horrific detail that can sometimes result in a kind of genocide porn. All the notes of the Holocaust song, including the rare ray of hope, are played in this spare, fast-moving novel.

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August 1, 2017
The SS occupies a Ukrainian town and rounds up all the Jews except for two brothers who manage to hide. Yasia, a farm girl, travels to the town in search of her fiance, enlisted as a laborer for the Nazis. German engineer Otto struggles to build a road for the Reich he despises. These three story lines intertwine, illustrating how evil affects ordinary people. Seiffert's (The Walk Home, 2017) characterization is well-realized, with a Nazi Sturmbannfuhrer (military officer) portrayed with more complexity than archetypal villainy. The novel truly shines in its offering of diverse, authentic perspectives. Some Ukrainians view the Germans as a better alternative to the oppressive Soviets, for they build infrastructure and allow farmers back on their land. While there is no open hatred, simmering resentment and fear form a better them than us attitude towards the fate of the Jewish inhabitants. Others possess a less faulty moral compass, yet one act of naive compassion spawns foreseeable and terrible tragedy. Seiffert does provides more successful instances of kindness as well as hope in her accomplished literary work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

Starred review from August 1, 2017

It may be slim, but this latest from Seiffert (The Walk Home) effectively captures the looming horror of the Holocaust. In World War II Ukraine, as Ephraim is marched into a red brick factory with other Jews, he searches desperately for his two sons, whom he suspects have disregarded German orders to line up. In fact, with little brother Momik in tow, rebellious adolescent Yankel is slipping furtively through the village's back streets, where they are spotted by farmer's daughter Yasia, who is in town to sell apples. She's also hoping to see her fiance Mykola, who's working with the Germans after having served with the Red Army, a fraught circumstance clarifying the terrible realities of the bloodlands at that time. Yasia decides to shelter the boys, even as the roundup of Jews continues and townsfolk huddle indoors, desperate to deflect danger from themselves and wishing the Jews and hence the Germans would soon be gone. Meanwhile, Otto Pohl, a German engineer helping to build a road through the nearby marshes, comes to realize the full horror of the Nazi regime he's silently opposed, as Seiffert captures events in visceral detail. VERDICT A quietly persuasive work; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2017

In World War II Ukraine, Ephraim is marched with other Jews into a red brick factory and searches the crowd for his two sons, whom he suspects have disregarded German orders to line up. In fact, they're slipping furtively through the back streets and are spotted by farmer's daughter Yasia, who decides to offer them shelter. From one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, whose recent powerhouse novel, The Walk Home, was long-listed for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017

It may be slim, but this latest from Seiffert (The Walk Home) effectively captures the looming horror of the Holocaust. In World War II Ukraine, as Ephraim is marched into a red brick factory with other Jews, he searches desperately for his two sons, whom he suspects have disregarded German orders to line up. In fact, with little brother Momik in tow, rebellious adolescent Yankel is slipping furtively through the village's back streets, where they are spotted by farmer's daughter Yasia, who is in town to sell apples. She's also hoping to see her fiance Mykola, who's working with the Germans after having served with the Red Army, a fraught circumstance clarifying the terrible realities of the bloodlands at that time. Yasia decides to shelter the boys, even as the roundup of Jews continues and townsfolk huddle indoors, desperate to deflect danger from themselves and wishing the Jews and hence the Germans would soon be gone. Meanwhile, Otto Pohl, a German engineer helping to build a road through the nearby marshes, comes to realize the full horror of the Nazi regime he's silently opposed, as Seiffert captures events in visceral detail. VERDICT A quietly persuasive work; highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 2/27/17.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.