Books
by Anne Michaels
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Fugitive Pieces |
This begins with the 'hero', as a very young boy, seeing his family brutally murdered by the Nazis. He escapes and finally sees an old man. He says: "I screamed into the silence [a] phrase...in Polish and German and Yiddish, thumping my fists on my own chest: dirty Jew, dirty Jew, dirty Jew!" The book follows the love that grows between the two. This is, unfortunately, Anne Michaels' only novel. I wish there were more.
(Julie Higgins - bwl 7 February 2001) |
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Fugitive Pieces |
This remarkable novel is written by a poet, and appropriately is loaded (at times perhaps over-loaded) with aphorisms, metaphors and poetic wisdom. It tells the story of the flight of a Jewish boy from the worst of Nazi cruelty, and of the remarkable character of his scholarly rescuer. It is very true to life and is by turns extremely painful, and extremely inspiring. It is an astonishing achievement, and deserves re-reading.
(Murray Jackson - bwl 26 October 2004) |
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The Winter Vault |
I loved her poetic writing and the philosophical musings interweaving
the story although some may find its meandering irritating. As well as being a story of love and loss, she considers the effect of the dislocation of people from their roots and memories through the building of the Aswan Dam, the St. Lawrence seaway and the destruction of Warsaw in WW II. A melancholic book about ordinary but extraordinary people but one that ends in hope.
(Christine Miller - bwl 53 September 2009) |
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The Winter Vault |
An introspective novel about displacement, love and loss. Set primarily in Canada, it time travels between the destruction of the Abu Simbel temple in 1964 to the ravishing of Warsaw in WW II. In lyrical, enigmatic and lingering prose Michael describes how Avery, a young engineer, and his botanist wife, Jean, after suffering their own personal tragedy, journey through the landscape of grief in their efforts to find where they truly belong.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 65 Summer 2012) |
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