In Reading Claudius, Caroline Heller does what Rilke called the
"heart-work," exploring moral accountability and the toll exacted by the
fact of survival. Her family story begins in pre-war Czechoslovakia,
passes through the Nazi holocaust, and continues on in postwar America,
affirming that events may end but repercussions never do. A searching
and humane memoir.
Sven Birkerts, author of The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again
In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents' lives and her own,
Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European café culture,
and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most
challenging of times.
Heller vividly evokes prewar Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and
studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee
initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual,
rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler's power spreads and World
War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee
the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author's
father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under
hellish conditions.
Though Paul's life nearly ends in Europe, he reunites with Liese in the
United States, where they marry. Their daughter Caroline, restless and
insecure, carries the trauma of her parents' story with her, but her
quest to make peace with her heritage is eased by her love of books and
writers, part of her family legacy. Through the darkest years of
Hitler's rule, Caroline's parents and uncle had turned time and time
again to literature to help them survive--and so she does as well.
Written with sensitivity and grace, Reading Claudius is a profound
meditation on the ways we strive to solve the mysteries of our pasts,
and a window into understanding the ones we love.
