“When is a monster’s child culpable? Guilt and complicity are multifaceted. John Boyne is a maestro of historical fiction. You can’t prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel.”
– John Irving
Synopsis:
Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn’t talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age 12. She doesn’t talk about the grim post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn’t talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich’s most notorious extermination camps.
Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry’s beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-won, self-contained existence.
All The Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel’s girlhood in Germany to present-day London as a woman whose life has been haunted by the past. Now, Gretel faces a similar crossroads to one she encountered long ago. Back then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before—whatever the cost to herself….
Many of us have heard of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, regardless if you read the book or have watched the movie. This was probably the only movie that I watched and was so emotionally affected that I could not watch it again. All the Broken Places picks up years later. (This is a sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.) Do you have to have read/watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? Not really; however, I think you would be more interested in “the rest of the story.” And if you think you can’t emotionally take any more of that story, I will say this book doesn’t discuss much about the previous book but how a family member comes to terms with not only what happened to her brother but the responsibility of her father’s actions in the deaths of thousands at a concentration camp.
This book picks up 79 years later (the sister is now 91). The book flips back and forth from Gretel’s present day life to survival after the war. Gretel obviously is dealing with a heavy load of guilt, one which affects her present actions when an abusive man moves in below her flat. I do not want to give away much but will say this…I think this is an excellent book that gets you thinking about those who survive atrocities committed by family members (and reflecting on how much did you know…are you also responsible, etc.). I do think you will like this book if feel the need for closure after the publication/movie release of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.
Below the line, I give more thoughts and snippets from the book. So, if you have not read the book and would like to, don’t read below the line.
- If every man is guilty of all the good he did not do, as Voltaire suggested, then I have spent a lifetime convincing myself that I am innocent of all the bad. (p. 3) Kindle Edition.
- …I had only gone beyond the fence once, on that single day that Father had brought me into the camp to observe his work. I tried to tell myself that I had been a bystander, nothing more, and that my conscience was clear, but already I was beginning to question my own involvement in the events I had witnessed. (p. 8-9) Kindle Edition. I feel like this quote really makes you think how much she understood what was going on…this is the basis of the guilt she has carried her entire life, especially one that makes her feel partly responsible for her brother’s death. She later calls it SURVIVOR’S GUILT.
- I think one of the best parts of this book is the author’s note at the end. He says that he isn’t trying to make you sympathetic to Gretel’s story but instead to create a story that leaves you reflecting on her actions after you finish the book. As he states, “it is easy when one is far removed from a historical episode to claim that one would not have acted as others did.” I think this is so true for any event in life. How easy is it to sit back, years later, and say “how could you have not known what was happening?” And yet, we do this every day. When nations are faced with possible genocidal actions, such as what happened in Rwanda in 1994, look at how the nations sit back and question (cough cough…U.S.) if genocide is really happening…and then only saying “yes” after the slaughter has happened. So many said “never again” after the Holocaust only to not want to intervene when evidence is provided that it IS happening again. We sit back and question the “Gretels” out there but shouldn’t many look in the mirror first?
