THE BOOK FAIR

Review:

Best selling author, Lauren Belfer based her third novel, “And After the Fire”, on the embedded anti-Semitism in Germany, a center of culture, learning and advancement.  The centerpiece of the novel, the discovered Bach manuscript, though fictional, serves as a symbol of German culture.  The manuscript reveals Johann Sebastian Bach, one of Germany’s most prized and adored composers wrote a virulently anti-Semitic cantata.  The novel presents the stories of two Jewish women, moves back and forth in time from present day U.S., to Prussia in the 1700’s, and offers a mix of both real and fictional figures.

 

Susannah Kessler, a young woman, inherits a package from her deceased uncle.  The package contains cantatas composed by Bach.  Susannah sets out to verify the historical work and the mystery of why and how her Uncle Henry came upon the work during his time as a soldier in WW II.   As a descendent of German Jews, Susannah wants to know more about the fate her family encountered in German under the Nazis.

Sara Itzig, daughter of a wealthy banker, Daniel Itzig, and music student of Frederick Bach, son of Johann Strauss Bach, lives in unsettling times for Jews, during the 1700’s in Germany.

 

Comments:

The author explores the depth of anti-Semitism which permeated Germany in all socio-economic classes, throughout the centuries.  Though Bach composed virulently ant-Semitic Passion librettos, Belfer points out that Bach’s anti-Jewish sentiment was not isolated and that other German musicians composed music with religious polemics.  In the 1800’s, composer Richard Wagner, a virulent anti-Semite, wrote of his dislike of Jews, as presented in the novel.

The author quotes anti-Semitic passages in the New Testament attesting that the Holocaust did not arise in a vacuum. 

Beautifully written and intelligent, Belfer artistically portrays the emotions of her characters and successfully weaves together the two interlocking stories.

 

Note:

The author published two previous novels, "The City of Light" and "A Firece Radiance."