Pictures of the Past is a compelling saga sweeping through Chicago, Paris and Berlin, reliving events from pre-World War II Europe, but beginning in contemporary times. An Impressionist painting, hanging for decades in the Art Institute of Chicago and donated by the charismatic philanthropist Taylor Woodmere, is challenged by an elderly woman as a Nazi theft. Taylor’s gripping and passionate story takes us back to 1937. Sent to Paris on family business, he reluctantly leaves his girlfriend Emily, a spoiled debutante from Newport, Rhode Island. But once in Europe, he immediately falls in love – first with an Henri Lebasque painting, and then with the enchanting Sarah Berger of Berlin. After Taylor returns home, the Berger family becomes trapped in the Nazi web, and any attempts for the new lovers to be reunited are thwarted. Interwoven with this narrative is the story of Rachel Gold, a beautiful and bright Chicago girl caught up in the times of the late 1960’s. Pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend Court Woodmere, Taylor’s son, she moves to New York to live with her aunt, a Holocaust survivor. Years later, as the controversy surrounding the provenance of the painting becomes public, Rachel’s grown son is disturbed by his inexplicable familiarity with the work of art. And it is only Taylor Woodmere who can unravel the complicated puzzle of their lives. With a heart-grabbing ending, Pictures of the Past is historical fiction at its best, giving a personalized window to the powerful events and intriguing venues of the eras. From a world torn by the horrors of war, a love story emerges that endures through years of separation.
As a Book Club leader for the past sixteen years, Deby Eisenberg challenged herself to write a novel that her avid readers could not put down and would love to discuss. With a Masters Degree from the University of Chicago, she is a former literature and creative writing high school teacher and journalist. "I tried to envision a multi-generational love story that would inform as well as entertain, that would broaden the mind and open the heart. Originally, I thought my audience would be traditional book clubbers, but both teens and seniors have embraced it because it deals with young love and the power of that love to endure forever."
Readers of Sarah's Key and Those Who Save Us are drawn to Pictures of the Past. Although the novel does not just center on that one time period, it approaches the most serious subject of the Holocaust with vibrancy and heart. "As readers, we can better understand horrific events of global proportion through identification and empathy with individual experiences," Eisenberg states.
She and her husband, Dr. Michael Eisenberg, an obstetrician-gynecologist live in Riverwoods, Illinois, and have three adult children and two grandchildren
