Nightfather

By Carl Friedman

Book Overview

The legacy of the Holocaust is passed on to a young girl through her father's stories in this celebrated novel. "When I was in the camp," her father's stories always begin. Although she lives in the everyday world of school and friends, a daughter is compelled by love to enter her father's harrowing world of hunger, death, and survival in the concentration camp. In a moving Afterword, the author sets the historical context for the novel and speaks directly about her own father, upon whom the novel is based. "An extraordinary novel written with passion, lucidity, and restraint" (The Forward).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0892552107
• ISBN13: 9780892552108
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Persea Books
• Length: 146 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Haunting

Nightfather is a novel that lingered in my mind, days after I finished the book. It doesn't read like a translation.

Truth

I was amazed at how much emotion and substance was present in such a short book. Whereas most contemporary depictions of the Holocaust focus on what is lost in death, Friedman shows the nature of staying alive in a concentration camp. A man loses many things, but what is gained from "having camp" will be with him for the rest of his life.

Recommendation

I'm typing this recommendation, so that more people read this book. It is a good book but the beginning is a little hard to understand because it keeps talking about camp. Once you get further into the book you start to understand what camp means. There are other things that are hard to understand, but I'm not going to tell you what they are. If you want to find out the other hard things to understand, read Nightfather. Basically the book is all about the grandfather flashing back to when he was in the holocaust. Once again this book is really good and from what I said I hope more people will read this book and other books on the holocaust because they are educational.

A treasure

I have just finished the book, it's still in my mind and I presume it will continue to be there for a long time. It's one of the best books I have ever read. From the first page, you are allowed to look into the souls of all characters, and you immediately start to understand them, to recognize part of your own feelings and movements in them. Whether it is father, mother or one of the three children...

Must reading for all ages, "camp" given a realistic meaning!

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.