Nightfather [Hardcover]

Carl Friedman (Author), Arnold Pomerans (Author), Erica Pomerans (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1994

Nightfather is a novel about the Holocaust like no other. Written in a deeply affecting style mixing lightness with gravity, it captures not only the experience of the concentration camp, but also its powerful legacy, passed down to a new generation through the enormous bond of love that ties parent and child. In forty brief chapters, the young daughter of a survivor tells of the efforts she and her two brothers make to try to bridge the gulf between themselves and their father that has been formed by his camp experiences. Unlike many of his generation, who remain silent, their father feels compelled to repeat the details of his ordeal. The children inhabit two worlds at once: the world of school and their friends, and their father's nightmare world of hunger, gas, and the crematoria. Every ordinary incident - a trip to the zoo, a drive in the country, an invitation to join Brownies - evokes a memory and a story of the camp. What are children to make of stories of humiliation and murder? Where do the stories stop and reality begin? Striving to find a balance, the children consider their father's world in terms of their own. They have had chicken pox and measles; he has "camp." Toothpaste is not only for brushing teeth, but also for emergency use to prevent thirst. As their father prowls restlessly through the house at night, telling them more and more about the camp, the children's essential innocence remains strangely intact, making its horrors at once easier to face and all the more harrowing. Gradually, with accumulating force, the story of one man's imprisonment and the terms of his survival are revealed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Dutch poet and journalist Friedman's first novel is a harrowing and deeply moving account of three siblings' struggle to understand their father, a Holocaust survivor plagued by nightmares and horrific memories. "I've had camp," Ephraim explains, referring to his ordeal as if it were the flu or measles, hoping to make it more comprehensible to his sullen preteen son, Max, to the younger and more innocent Simon and to his unnamed eight-year-old daughter, who narrates the story in a terse, precocious, lyrical voice. Eventually, Ephraim relives his camp experience with adult candor, telling his offspring of gassings, slave labor, torture and sadistic beatings, of how he murdered a camp boss and of his miraculous liberation and reunion with Bette, his wife and the children's mother. Friedman, whose father was a Holocaust survivor, manages despite all odds to tell her story with a light touch, showing keen insight into the emotional confusion and moral growth that the siblings undergo as they strive to fathom absolute evil and how it has scarred their father.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA?Through the first-person narration of the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Friedman presents a book that will resonate for readers of all ages, backgrounds, and interests. Each short chapter shows the horrors of Nazi atrocities and the subsequent struggle to make sense of why they happened. That the consequences of the Holocaust continue to manifest themselves is a primary lesson to be learned here?the loss of childhood is a circular occurrence in this family. At the same time, the vignettes point out how little we can understand of the agony suffered in concentration camps. In one chapter, somewhat reminiscent of Anne Frank, the narrator's father tells his tale of survival to his children. His loss gradually becomes their loss, and all joy is dampened. Sadness and helplessness are constant. Although the book is grim and relentlessly intense, the analysis and thought that it offers will provide new insights into the Holocaust and its victims.?Richard Klein, Edison High School, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 129 pages
• Publisher: Persea Books; 1st edition (September 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892551933
• ISBN-13: 978-0892551934
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,631,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must reading for all ages, "camp" given a realistic meaning!, June 4, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Nightfather (Hardcover)

A must for all who shared the guilt of their parents but did not understand the impact of the mind-games played on our youthful minds. A must for teachers of every confirmation class, A must for Rabbi's to relate the how our generation shared the Holocaust through our parents guilt.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Short, but moving, vignettes, March 28, 2004

By 

Victory Silvers - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nightfather (Hardcover)

I've read many books about the Holocaust, and this book is like no other I've come across. It mainly deals with what happened afterwards, and how three siblings struggle to understand what their father went through while imprisoned in a concentration camp. The youngest sibling, a girl, who remains unnamed for the duration of the story, listens along with her two older brothers as their father tells them stories of torture, murder, and survival. Each chapter is short, but tells of one experience, some big, some small, of how the children were effected their father's stories, or, struggle to understand the man behind them. For the amount of time it took me to read, I sure got a lot out of it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Simply masterpiece, September 5, 2002

By 

R. Gilbert (Kenosha, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nightfather (Hardcover)

Told from the point of view of a child dealing with a father's memories of surviving a concentration camp, the novel presents vignettes that are rich with meaning. While written with a simplistic prose, the novel needs to be mined to give up its treasure. It is both sad and funny and a wonderful addition to Holocaust literature. The sins of the maniacal continue to haunt the survivors, but the family as well.