06 Oct 2013 04:18:30
Leo was in his teens when the Berlin Wall came down and his anxious younger self is a presence throughout the book, but it's his family's stories that dominate. The most compelling sequences concern his grandfathers: two men who were different in every way imaginable. Gerhard, his mother's father, was a Jew who ended up fighting in the French Resistance while his paternal grandfather, Werner, fought for the fatherland before ending up a prisoner of war. Leo pieces together their stories and, in Gerhard's case, struggles to connect the stern, remote man he knew, and to some extent feared, as a child with the bright, brave young man in uniform. "Why did he hide from us for all those years?" he wonders.
Leo's parents, the bohemian Wolf and Anne, also feature prominently and the writing process, the gathering of old files and photographs, appears to allow him to better understand the ideological struggles that shaped them, the numerous compromises and adjustments that came from living in such a controlling environment.Leo documents his parent's complex and differing relationships with the state, this entity that permeated every aspect of their lives – and yet was home. In a tone that is analytical yet not without affection, Leo grapples with these contradictions, sculpting a family narrative that is simultaneously gripping and meditative, an engaging and thought-provoking portrait of a disappeared world.
