GREAT HOUSE

A battered wooden desk and the lives it touches form the link between characters in this engrossing exploration of life and loss, memory and guilt, Jewish culture and history, and the tenuousness of emotional connections. Perfect for audio, GREAT HOUSE employs talented narrators who endow each of the main characters with human fallibility, giving credibility to their fears, moments of cruelty, selfish hopes, and flashes of selflessness. Nadia borrows the desk from a young poet who disappears in Chile during the Pinochet regime. He got the desk from Lotte, a woman with a terrible secret. George Weisz spends his life reclaiming belongings seized from Jews by the Nazis during WWII. Beautifully read and artfully written, Krauss’s every sentence wraps itself around the heart. Prepare to be mesmerized. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2010]