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A review by jessicaesquire
Love & Treasure by Ayelet Waldman
4.0
I've always been intrigued by Ayelet Waldman. I've read several of her books and usually wanted to like them more than I eventually did. So I was really happy to see her step up into a new realm and go for something very different. It's perhaps her most successful novel, too.
If you're like me, you've read a lot of WWII novels, a lot of holocaust novels, and sometimes I avoid them because there have already been so many. But I love the approach Waldman takes. It's not about either the war or the holocaust directly, but the several connected stories in different time periods center around the Hungarian Gold Train, a shipment of valuable property once owned by the Jews of Hungary and confiscated by the government. After the war, the US guards the property, specifically under the guard of Jack, one of the central characters of the novel.
Also featured in the stories are Natalie, Jack's granddaughter, who is fulfilling his last wish of returning one of the pieces from the gold train to a rightful owner. The stories cover a hundred years and several countries. They are connected without being too close. The prose is different as we move to different places and times. And each section is successful on its own, something that rarely happens in this kind of book.
If you're like me, you've read a lot of WWII novels, a lot of holocaust novels, and sometimes I avoid them because there have already been so many. But I love the approach Waldman takes. It's not about either the war or the holocaust directly, but the several connected stories in different time periods center around the Hungarian Gold Train, a shipment of valuable property once owned by the Jews of Hungary and confiscated by the government. After the war, the US guards the property, specifically under the guard of Jack, one of the central characters of the novel.
Also featured in the stories are Natalie, Jack's granddaughter, who is fulfilling his last wish of returning one of the pieces from the gold train to a rightful owner. The stories cover a hundred years and several countries. They are connected without being too close. The prose is different as we move to different places and times. And each section is successful on its own, something that rarely happens in this kind of book.