Customer Reviews

Opa Nobody (American Lives)

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In Opa Nobody, Sonya Huber expands the territory of the memoir by engaging in speculation of the most fruitful kind about the family history that history itself conspired to make only partially available. The result is a memoir reminiscent of novels that incorporate similar strategies, among them Philip Roth's American Pastoral and William Styron's Sophie's Choice. Lofty company, this, but it is company Huber has earned. Opa Nobody is highly recommended.

Opa Nobody is a powerful memoir by Sonya Huber, who imagines her grandfather's life in Germany as he tries and fails to fight the Nazis, losing a child and then a wife while focusing on the political struggle at all costs. Sonya searches for answers from her long gone grandfather as she finds herself drawn to the fight, too, as a political organizer in the United States--something she continues even as she becomes a mother herself. The book makes us ask, What would society be without those who struggle for change but at what price? In Huber's memoir, history becomes personal and poetic. The book was a finalist for the William Saroyan Prize for Literature at Stanford University.

Sonya gives of herself in this book in a very personal way. The book is remarkable in how detailed it is. She obviously sees human nature for what it is: Good, Bad, but mostly always in between and complicated. It is a haunting book but also hopeful. I knew her a little when she was in Ohio, so I know how hard working and dedicated she is. Still, I was surprised by how really great the book was. Incredible work. - Rick W.

This compelling hybrid manages to be at the same time a memoir of a young activist and new mother, a meticulously researched history of a group about whom little has been written - German anti-fascists in Nazi Germany - and a richly imagined version of the author's grandfather's life. Huber expertly draws parallels between her own experiences and the lives of the grandparents she never met, while creating characters so real that I found myself in tears at the end.