Anja the Liar [Mass Market Paperback]

Thomas Moran (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 2004

The award-winning author of Water, Carry Me and The Man in the Box returns to the historical and moral terrain that has made him one of the most acclaimed authors of his generation with this absorbing portrait of two people whose lives have been forever altered by the horrors of World War II.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Memory is the terrible burden shouldered by the protagonists of Moran's novel, survivors of WWII who became executioners in order to live. Polish-born Anja has left her former existence behind, fleeing Krak¢w, where she betrayed Resistance fighters to the Germans. In a displaced persons camp, she meets, across a barbed wire fence, former Wehrmacht officer Walter Fass, himself forever plagued with guilt for the massacre of partisan fighters in Yugoslavia. The two make the practical decision to marry-Walter offers Anja the shelter of his uncle's Tyrolean farm, and Anja helps one-armed Walter with the farmwork-and they gradually come to feel affection for each other. The birth of their daughter brings them closer together, but just as love and honesty come to seem possible, one of Walter's wartime comrades appears on their doorstep. Seductive, unscrupulous Mila is a Chetnik woman with a steely will and secret objectives, and she insinuates herself into both Walter and Anja's lives, poisoning their marriage. Moran has an impressive ability to create characters who are at once morally troubling and sympathetic. Anja, in particular, is a nuanced figure, pleading weakness but also acknowledging the pleasing sense of power her wartime actions gave her. The parallel account of another postwar marriage of convenience linking Anja's lesbian friend Sisi and Walter's homosexual friend Dizzi provides a piquant counterpoint to the main narrative. But truth and happiness are perpetually out of reach for both couples, and the novel's tragic conclusion forgoes even the comfort of confession. Moran (The Man in the Box, etc.) ties up his tale too quickly, but his examination of the fine distinctions between evil, weakness and desperation is stimulating and unflinching.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

In the late summer of 1945, Anja and Sisi find themselves in a displaced person camp; they agree to marry two ex-soldiers, thereby insuring their release. Anja marries Walter Fass, an ex-Wehrmacht officer. Both are trying to escape a past filled with horrific memories: Anja, who betrayed her friends in the Polish underground, and Walter, who agonizes over his role as "a passive witness to barbarity." Sisi, a vivacious free spirit, marries an Austrian who fought with Walter in Yugoslavia; theirs is a loveless marriage. But while Anja and Walter's union also begins as one of convenience, their feelings gradually evolve into love, cemented by the birth of their daughter. The past erupts in the form of a woman who fought with Walter and forced him to participate in a mass murder--an act that torments him daily. As if emerging from the grave, she destroys his burgeoning efforts to make peace with his ignoble past. Moran expertly delves into the psyches of his fragile characters, leaving a haunting portrait of the aftermath of war. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Trade (November 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594480370
• ISBN-13: 978-1594480379
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,499,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great drama, October 1, 2003

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anja the Liar (Hardcover)

In 1945 Anja Wienewska stands inside the fence that contains those refuges from the war with no papers. Former Wehrmact Captain Walter Fass sees her and begins talking to her in Polish, as he believes she is from Poland. Anja ignores him until he speaks in German; she insists she is German and not Polish. Anja is from Krakow, Poland where she betrayed her people to the German occupiers. Under Nazi control, she learned how to lie.

Walter has dark secrets too from his time in Yugoslavia. Needing to atone and appease his conscience and help Anna, he marries her. They travel to his farm where she gives birth to their child as they share a camaraderie. However, as their past surfaces with the appearance of Walter's war comrade, their fragile relationship seems to go kaput as the war taught both to distrust everyone.

ANJA THE LAIR is a deep look at the cost of a war on individuals trying to survive during the fighting and its aftermath. The story line is incredibly insightful as Thomas Moran paints a gloomy Europe still reeling from the devastation of WW II. Walter and Anja answer the Edwin Starr question of "War, what is good for?" as both have paid with their souls to endure the fight and remain compensating the piper as neither can trust anyone nor give their love to anybody including their spouse. This is a strong late 1940s drama that rips asunder the other psychological costs of war.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting read, September 27, 2005

By 

Richard Kurtz (NYC<P>NYC, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anja the Liar (Mass Market Paperback)

I found Anja the Liar to be one of those reads that, as you advance through it, it captures your interest. It is a hard book to recommend since it is somewhat difficult to define. It does have some interesting historical material related to the whole DP situation at the conclusion of WWII and the disbursement of people at that time. But I did think that the odd triangle that develops in the latter part of the novel is somehwat contrived ..and that some of the characters were not fully defined ...but saying all this, I did enjoy the novel and found it to be a real page turner towards the end.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Imagery and Characters, October 5, 2003

By 

R. Gassel "Sustainable Design-Build" (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Anja the Liar (Hardcover)

Anyone who has read Moran's previous work knows that he has the uncanny ability to place the reader not only in the time and place of his characters, but also in their hearts and minds. You are where they are, feeling what they feel, suffering what they suffer. You feel all the joy and pain, along with the shame and guilt. It is this willingness to risk the reader's sympathy that sets Moran's writing apart.

In Anja The Liar we are transported to a post-World War II Europe that is filled with uncertainty. Anja finds herself in a camp for displaced persons with no real desire to be released. She seems devoid of hope, and racked with guilt over her betrayals during the War. She meets Walter, and dares to think that there may be a way back to life. Like Anja, and most others, Walter also harbors his own guilt over actions he was "forced" to take during the war.

From Poland, to Austria, to the Tyrol, or wherever the reader is taken, Moran describes the landscape, and the people, with absolute clarity. The detail he uses shows that this is an author who has done his research, and cares that the reader is given a real feel for the world in which these characters live. Anja The Liar is a beautiful, daring, and sometimes heartbreaking book. It is a journey you will want to take.