Starred review from January 29, 2024
Lloyd debuts with a gripping and powerful story of a British Jewish family visited by ghosts and divided by politics. While growing up in London in the 1990s, Elsie Rosenthal bonds with her paternal grandfather Yosef, a Holocaust survivor from Warsaw who lives in the attic. She’s 14 when she overhears Yosef on his deathbed telling her journalist mother, Hannah, about his collaboration with the Nazis in exchange for marginally better treatment, and how he continues to be tormented by memories of a nine-year-old orphan boy named Ariel, whom he escorted to the gas chamber at Treblinka. After Yosef dies, Elsie’s father, Eric, defies his wishes to be cremated and gives him a proper Jewish burial. Shortly after the funeral, Elsie goes missing for several days. When the police finally bring her home, she exhibits a haunted demeanor and claims to be able to see dead people including Yosef and Ariel. She develops anorexia and attempts suicide, and her mother accuses her of witchcraft and demonic possession. A parallel narrative follows her younger brother Tovyah at Oxford University in 2008, where he is tormented by classmates who call his mother a “fascist” for publishing a pro-Israel op-ed during bombings of Gaza. Lloyd’s panoply of secular, atheistic, and strictly observant characters set the stage for complex discussions of antisemitism and Zionism and a dramatic spiritual reckoning, as Elise remains haunted by Yosef and his unmet final wishes. Fans of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Stephen King alike will thrill to this superb modern folk tale. Agent: Becky Thomas, Lewinsohn Agency.
May 31, 2024
Lloyd's suspenseful debut probes at conventional understandings of faith and family, as seen through the experiences of the Rosenthal family--Hannah and Eric, who live in 1990s North London with their three children and Eric's father, Yosef. As Hannah prepares to publish an account of Yosef's life, including his time in a concentration camp, the family's youngest daughter, Elsie, comes undone. She disappears shortly after her grandfather's death; when she reappears, she is changed in unsettling and inexplicable ways. A parallel storyline follows the family's young son Tovyah attending Oxford University in 2008 and contending with the impact and politics of his family's strict observant Judaism. Narrator Genevieve Gaunt gives voice to a family struggling with change and dysfunction as they reckon with mysticism and the weight of the past. Gaunt's narration perfectly captures the fractures within the family and communicates the love that binds even in the most difficult times. VERDICT A novel with hints of horror that illuminates the rippling effects of the Holocaust, generational trauma, and discussions of religion and politics.--Elyssa Everling
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