The Lost: A search for six of six million

by Daniel Mendelsohn (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $5.81

  'A gripping detective story, a stirring epic, a tale of ghosts and dark marvels, a thrilling display of scholarship, a meditation on the unfathomable mystery of good and evil, The Lost is as complex and rich with meaning and story as the past it seeks to illuminate. A beautiful book, beautifully written.' Michael Chabon In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer's search for the truth behind his family's tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic -- part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work -- that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history. 'The Lost' begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust -- an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by the fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relative's fates. That quest eventually takes him to a dozen countries on four continents, and forces him to confront the wrenching discrepancies between the histories we live and the stories we tell. And it leads him, finally, back to the small Ukrainian town where his family's story began, and where the solution to a decades-old mystery awaits him. Deftly moving between past and present, interweaving a world-wandering odyssey with childhood memories of a now-lost generation of immigrant Jews, and provocative ruminations on biblical texts and Jewish history, 'The Lost' transforms the story of one family into a profound, morally searching meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Deeply personal, grippingly suspenseful, and beautifully written, this literary tour de force illuminates all that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.25

  'A gripping detective story, a stirring epic, a tale of ghosts and dark marvels, a thrilling display of scholarship, a meditation on the unfathomable mystery of good and evil, The Lost is as complex and rich with meaning and story as the past it seeks to illuminate. A beautiful book, beautifully written.' Michael Chabon 'The Lost' is the story of an odyssey in search of six ghosts. Daniel Mendelsohn grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust - an unmentionable subject that gripped the author's imagination from his earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939, Mendelsohn embarked on a hunt for the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives' fates. That quest eventually took him to a dozen countries on three continents, including Ukraine, Poland, Israel, Australia, Sweden and Denmark - an epic journey that gradually exposed the tragic conflicts that can arise between the history we live and the stories we tell. Deftly moving between past and present, interweaving reportage with richly evoked childhood memories of a now-lost generation of immigrant Jews, 'The Lost' transforms the story of one family into a profound meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Grippingly suspenseful and beautifully written, this literary tour de force brilliantly illuminates all that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.