Oh Lord, What is Next?
A Review of
The Rest is Memory: A Novel
Lily Tuck
Hardcover: Liveright, 2024
Buy Now: [ BookShop ] [ Amazon ] [ Kindle ] [ Audible ]
Reviewed by Maryanne Hannan
Between the years 1941 and 1945, Auschwitz prisoner Wilhelm Brasse photographed more than 40,000 fellow prisoners, as a conscripted functionary in the “camp identification service.” Brasse survived Auschwitz and lived to the age of 94, documenting and sharing his camp experiences in books and photographs. In the obituary published at his death in 2012, Lily Tuck, a previous National Book Award recipient, was struck by three photographs of a young Polish girl. Several years later, after researching known facts from that time and filling in the gaps with due delicacy, Tuck has published The Rest Is Memory, an innovative work of historical fiction.
As she reimagines the final three months of Czeslawa Kwoka’s life (late 1942 until March 1943), Tuck forefronts her sources in footnotes, on the bottom of each page in the print book, thereby calling attention to the fact that the book is an amalgam of the factual and imagined. The careful documentation is not aggregated in the back of the book or at the end of chapters, which, incidentally, makes the book difficult to read as an ebook, because the footnotes occur in the middle of the text. The printed book, with its footnotes and other relevant source material quoted, presents as non-fiction. The imagined material weaves in and out beautifully, much like the lace Czeslawa’s grandmother sewed on her first communion dress.
The fourteen year old girl, whose image Brasse captured, committed one crime: she was Polish and lived in a geographical area from which Poles were being permanently removed, to make way for German resettlement. In addition to lists of prisoners at Auschwitz, Tuck had historical records to draw from, including those of Commandant Rudolph Höss who was executed after the war for crimes against humanity. Other historic personages show up including Jan Zamoyski and his wife Róża who worked on behalf of their fellow Poles while seemingly serving the Nazi regime. Tuck plumbs horrific details of camp life from the work of short story writer Tadeusz Borowski and lightens the tone by sprinkling Czeslaw’s enjoyment of Janusz Korczak’s Kaytek the Wizard throughout. Of course, this motif gets increasingly grim, as she and her mother lose even the power of prayer and story.
From the book’s beginning, we learn that Czeslawa’s name means future glory. Instantly, we’re acutely aware of the bitter irony of this birth prediction and the shattered dreams of not one family, but an entire society. In a rural village, a young girl’s yearning for life and more experience rings true: the delight she takes in her beautiful communion dress, being moved by the priest’s sermon on universal love, and the cultural ritual of coloring Easter eggs. Besides the readers’ awareness that everything will be tragically different by next Easter, these details underscore the fact that this Polish family (and town) are Catholic.
The imagined material rings true, without needing to be factual. We know so much more than we think we do about a person, based on the area’s history, the geography, the weather, how they feed and shelter themselves, the customs with which they live. If the historical record shows it was snowing on a particular day, then it’s a small leap of imagination to think that a little girl would open her mouth to let the snowflakes land and melt on her tongue. So many girls would do the same yet Tuck personifies and personalizes her, with these small, poignant details.
Hovering over this bold mix of fiction and nonfiction is the little girl’s photo; the same face that moved Brasse and caught Tuck’s attention adorns the book’s cover. I see not a child, but an ageless soul, peering out at us, wondering what is next. Oh Lord, what is next?
Maryanne Hannan
Maryanne Hannan is a poet and frequent book reviewer, and also a member of the National Book Critics Circle. She lives in upstate New York and is the author of Rocking like It’s All Intermezzo: 21st Century Psalm Responsorials (Wipf and Stock, 2019). More information at www.mhannan.com.
 Reading for the Common Good From ERB Editor Christopher Smith "This book will inspire, motivate and challenge anyone who cares a whit about the written word, the world of ideas, the shape of our communities and the life of the church." -Karen Swallow Prior Enter your email below to sign up for our weekly newsletter & download your FREE copy of this ebook! |
Understanding Christian Nationalism [A Reading Guide] |
 Most Anticipated Books of the Fall for Christian Readers!
|
 Hilarious One-Star Customer Reviews of Bibles |
