[alert variation=”alert-info”]Publisher: Viking
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, Kindle, Audiobook, Audible
Purchase: Powell’s | Amazon | IndieBound | iBooks[/alert]
Brand is a holocaust survivor constantly haunted by his past and present life. He is now a refugee in Palestine driving a taxi with false papers and a semblance of a new mission with the underground. He falls in love with Eva, a fellow refugee and a whore. He joins resistance missions with people he neither knows, nor really trusts. Brand grapples with how much his life has changed; he was honest and loved a beautiful innocent woman, and wonders how his life could be so different after the prison camps.
Stewart O’ Nan is the master of simple writing wrought with powerful meaning. O’ Nan’s character, Brand, questions everything he has known and tries not to be bitter with his present situation. The author introduces mysterious characters and slowly reveals their flaws and insecurities. The reader gets a glimpse of the challenges and fears of living a life in the underground while detailing missions that most people would be afraid to participate in making happen. The writing is descriptive, but sparse, and somehow magically takes the reader to a deeper place where life’s assumptions are questioned and one is forced to explore what is really important or even real.
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