The Rest Is Memory
The Rest Is Memory
Tuck, Lily
product information
Condition: New, UPC: 9781324095729, Type: Hardcover ,
join & start selling
description
a boy's motorcycle, fourteen-year-old Czeslawa comes to life in this mesmerizing novel by Lily Tuck, who imagines her upbringing in a small Polish village before her world imploded in late 1942. Stripped of her modest belongings, shorn, and tattooed number 26947 on arriving at Auschwitz, Czeslawa is then photographed. Three months later, she is dead.

How did this happen to an ordinary Polish citizen? This is the question that Tuck grapples with in this haunting novel, which frames Czeslawa's story within the epic tragedy of six million Poles who perished during the German occupation. A decade prior to writing The Rest Is Memory, Tuck read an obituary of the photographer Wilhelm Brasse, who took more than 40,000 pictures of the Auschwitz prisoners. Included were three of Czeslawa Kwoka, a Catholic girl from rural southeastern Poland. Tuck cut out the photos and kept them, determined to learn more about Czeslawa, but she was only able to glean the barest facts: the village she came from, the transport she was on, that she was accompanied by her mother and her neighbors, her tattoo number, and the date of her death. From this scant evidence, Tuck's novel becomes a remarkable kaleidoscopic feat of imagination, something only our greatest novelists can do.

"Beautifully written, all the while instilling a sense of horror" (Susanna Moore), Tuck's language swirls about, yet not a word is out of place. The subtly rotating images tumble out at us, accelerating as we learn about Czeslawa's tragic stay in Auschwitz, the lives of real people such as the barbaric Commandant Rudolf Höss; his unconscionable wife, Hedwig; the psychiatrist and child rescuer Janusz Korczak; and the mordant Polish short story writer Tadeusz Borowski. Although we are certain of Czeslawa's fate, we have no choice but to keep turning the pages, thoroughly mesmerized by Tuck's near otherworldly prose.

In Lily Tuck's hands, The Rest Is Memory becomes an unforgettable work of historical reclamation that rescues an innocent life, one previously only recalled by a stark triptych of photographs.
reviews

Be the first to write a review

member goods

No member items were found under this heading.

notems store

The Night of the Lightbringer

by Tremayne, Peter

Paperback /Paperback

$13.46

Civil War

by Millar, Mark

Paperback /Paperback

World of Eric Carle: Write-And-Erase ...

by Pi Kids

Hardcover /Board Books

$8.99

listens & views

WELD

by YOUNG,NEIL

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$19.99

ALIVE & SCREAMIN (GER)

by KROKUS

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$20.99

ABBEY DUB

by YELLOW DUBMARINE

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$12.99

KIHE 3: VOL 1

by DEMISSIE,SAYAT

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$12.25

Return Policy

All sales are final

Shipping

No special shipping considerations available.
Shipping fees determined at checkout.
promoting relevance through notable postings ]
share it, buy it, sell it ]

A notem is a post that highlights an experience, idea, topic of interest, an event ... whatever a member believes worthy of discussion. Each notem becomes a pathway by which to make meaningful connections.

notems is a free, global social network that rewards members by the number and quality of notems they post.

notemote® © . Privacy Policy. Developed by Hartmann Software Group