All The Broken Places: The Sequel to The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

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In this story, Gretel Fernsby is approaching her 92nd birthday when a new family moves into the flat below her. When she befriends the boy and the mother, she is faced with a complexity. She suspects that the husband is abusing, physically and emotionally, both the child and the wife. What to do? His expression was one that I had seen before, when I was a child and living in that other place. The soldiers had worn it, almost to a man. A desire to hurt. An awareness that there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. It was mesmerizing. I could not look away and nor, it seemed, could he.” Boyne uses Gretel to illuminate complicity in knowing something is wrong, terrible, and not doing anything about it, not taking any responsibility. In Gretel’s case, if she, at age 12, went to the authorities and reported what she had seen, could she have saved lives? Instead, she spent her life hiding and ashamed. At age 91, nearly 92, she must confront her culpability. Shall she turn a blind eye? Or, should she do something to help save the mother and boy, which could result in her being identified and humiliated? There are few functioning families within the novel: everyone is affected by the reach of war, its tendrils stretching across the planet and through time. Warped parent/child relationships range from the apparently trivial (Gretel’s greedy son wants her to sell her luxurious flat) to the truly monstrous. Gretel’s mother, we learn, remained a true believer in nazism until the end. In the present-day plot strand, the film producer’s abuse of his family threatens to erupt into tragedy. Henry is a ghost-like figure, reminding Gretel both of her dead brother and of her failures as a mother.

Gretel, Bruno’s grieving, guilt-ridden sister, is the narrator. The reader gradually pieces together her story as the narrative switches confidently from present-day Mayfair, where for decades she has been living in a comfortable flat, to her peripatetic past. As she tries to escape the chaos of the end of the second world war, she grapples with her memories of Auschwitz, her parents and her own part in her brother’s death. These are vividly detailed, with a sense of revenge and retribution always lurking around the corner. With the rise in antisemitism, such as it is in this country, and that so often manifests through trivialization, distortion and denial of the Holocaust, this book could potentially do more harm than good,” Centre for Holocaust Education researcher Ruth-Anne Lenga concluded at the end of her 2016 study. Further worries manifest themselves: Gretel's other neighbor, Heidi, is becoming increasingly forgetful; and Gretel's cash-strapped, much-married son, Caden, is determined to sell her luxury flat. Sequel to the hugely successful The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, All The Broken Places is a moving story about grief, guilt and complicity. Needless to say, that with John Boyne at the helm, we’re treated to a storyline full of insight, from the ugliness of life through to the purity of love. Don’t miss this one! I was privileged ton read an advance copy of this novel, the sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas .

The Devil’s Daughter

and….(just my own preferences)….but his WWII and post-affects of WWII novels are not my ‘very’ favorites…..(even though I respect his passion and interest), John Boyne is one of my favourite authors but strangely enough the I was one of the very few people who wasn’t completely blown away by his novel ‘The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas’. I did enjoy it but not as much as the wonderful ‘The Hearts invisible Furies’ or ‘Ladder to the Sky’ which were both masterpieces. ‘All the Broken Places’ is a sequel to ‘The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas’ and I was completely absorbed from the very start. Exceptional, layered and compelling…Thisbookmoves likea freight train.”—Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of In Love A powerful novel about secrets and atonement after Auschwitz… All the Broken Places is a defence of literature’s need to shine a light on the darkest aspects of human nature; and it does so with a novelist’s skill, precision and power.” All The Broken Places” is a sequel of sorts to his 2006 novel, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”, which was also made into a movie. One does not need to read the first one to appreciate this complex story.

Kitsch has indeed come to dominate the field – from the Broadway adaptation of the Diary of Anne Frank to Schindler’s List. At the other end of the spectrum, masterpieces, often by survivors – Primo Levi, Paul Celan, Jean Améry – tend towards aesthetic and intellectual rigour, resisting closure and withholding comfort. Much of so-called “Holocaust fiction” is aimed at children and included in the “Holocaust curricula” that are mandatory in many jurisdictions, though fatally handicapped by a refusal to show children violence or even darkness. In the years since Kertész’s essay, however, a micro-genre of Holocaust fiction for adults has proliferated: The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Librarian of Auschwitz, The Violinist of Auschwitz. Unlike the children’s fare, these have no excuse for their optimism. Kurt asks Gretel, “Why do you struggle to call things what they are?” (251) She refuses to say her brother’s name or the name of her former residence in Germany. How do you think this affects the way Gretel processes her emotions? Can you relate? That fascination led to the publication, when Boyne was 33, of Striped Pyjamas, which he’d always conceived of as a children’s story. In the book, Bruno, the nine-year-old son of a Nazi commandant, befriends Shmuel, a Jewish concentration-camp prisoner of the same age; it ends with Bruno donning the “striped pyjamas” and following his friend into the gas chambers.

All The Broken Places

Among my most popular books are The Heart’s Invisible Furies, A Ladder to the Sky and My Brother’s Name is Jessica.

It’s very much a story about grief and guilt. About trauma, and attempting to escape the past. About running, but never being able to hide. But it's also a compassionate book, and Gretel is a deeply flawed but likeable character and we can see how she has been shaped by events. In All the Broken Places we meet Gretel again. The book is told in two timelines, one after Gretel and her mother have escaped after the war and gone undercover so as avoid possible arrest for war crimes, and the other of Gretel in her nineties living in comfort in London but still hiding under another name and still full of guilt.When is a monster's child culpable? Guilt and complicity are multifaceted. John Boyne is a maestro of historical fiction. You can't prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel' John Irving Ultimately, the book motivated me to write an opera about the Shoah and integrate Holocaust education into my music,” Max said. “Any book capable of that is worthy of attention.” He would read many more Holocaust books during his 20s, from Primo Levi to Anne Frank to Sophie’s Choice, fascinated by how recently the atrocity took place. “How could something that seems like it should have happened, say, 1000 years ago – because the death count is so enormous and so horrifying – how could that happen so close to the time that I’m alive in?” he thought. “And if it could, then what’s to stop it happening again?” What a brilliant story it was and it needed telling, probably movie worthy just like the boy in stripped Pj's.

In 1946, German born Gretel, and her mother escaped Poland for Paris, after a monumental event took place in their personal lives. Physically they may have fled their past, but psychologically, the shame and accompanying fear meant they would never really find peace. When Alex confronts Gretel and tries to intimidate her following Madelyn’s overdose, he tells her a bit about his abusive, alcoholic parents and his childhood in the foster system. How is pain passed through the generations in this novel? When and how do characters successfully end the cycle of inflicting harm on the next generation? Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South. This is not literature. As a grown-up sequel to children’s trash, All the Broken Places serves two roles. First, to demonstrate that Boyne definitely did not think that the Germans were innocent, definitely knew they were “complicit” and “guilty” and that history is “complicated”, etc, thanks very much. Second, to serve as a sort of fan fiction for those peculiar adults who long for the comfort of a childhood favourite.When Gretel witnesses a violent argument between Henry’s mother and his domineering father, she is faced with a chance to make amends for her guilt, grief and remorse and act to save a young boy. But by doing this she would be forced to reveal her true identity to the world and could cost her dearly. We see Gretel as a child in Germany, a teen in France, a young woman in Australia, and through many decades of life in London. What changes did you notice in Gretel’s personality throughout the years? While over a third of English secondary schools use The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and its film adaptation in Holocaust lessons, Auschwitz Memorial replied that the book “should be avoided by anyone who studies or teaches about the Holocaust”. The tweet linked to a 2019 essay in which Hannah May Randall, the head of learning at Holocaust Centre North, highlights the novel’s historical inaccuracies and faults it for perpetuating “dangerous myths”. Boyne delivers a seemingly redundant adult sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas...Boyne creates vivid characters, but a certain thematic obviousness dilutes the dramatic effect. Fans of the first book may enjoy revisiting the material as adults, but this doesn't quite land on its own." - Publishers Weekly From the author of the multi-million-copy classic, and The Heart's Invisible Furies. A devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her past and a present in which it is never too late for bravery.