Rezension
'Winner of the 2016 PEN New England AwardAn ALA Notable Book of 2015Winner of the Sophie Brody Medal for Excellence in Jewish LiteratureFinalist for the Jewish Book Award"Shepard's harrowing, comic, and deeply human story of a boy in the Warsaw ghetto crushed me. This book needs to be read." -Anthony Doerr (Favorite Reads of 2015)"A masterpiece. . . a remarkable novel destined to join the shelf of essential Holocaust literature. . . . a story of such startling candor about the complexity of heroism that it challenges each of us to greater courage. . . . Shepard has created something transcendent and timeless." -Ron Charles, The Washington Post"Shepard is a flat-out brilliant and deeply empathetic writer [who] puts the reader inside a known enclosure and yet makes us feel anew the bewilderment and horror of that time and place. . . . The Book of Aron is a worthy, necessary addition to the literature of the Holocaust." -Rob Spillman, Guernica"In the pantheon of living American writers, [Shepard] has provided a perfectly paced plot [and] by limiting his perspective to a young Polish boy [has] given the story an urgency and immediacy that made this reviewer read the entire book in only two sittings. . . . The Book of Aron is a tragedy of heroism, exquisitely written and devastating as it progresses. A valuable addition to Holocaust literature, Aron's story will likely linger long in any reader's memory." -Greg Walkin, The Lincoln Journal Star"This tender, slim novel is so distressing, so moving, so absorbing, so horrible and even so funny (in places and in the saddest ways) that I had to reading it during the daytime because when I read pages before bed, they'd keep me up half the night. Maybe it's because my own sons are approaching Aron's age, but I'm not sure I've ever felt the anguish of the ghetto during the Second World War so acutely. (And the relationship between Aron and his mother is exquisitely built and exquisitely painful.)" -Anthony Doerr, The San Francisco Chronicle"[Shepard's] narrow perspective creates an uncanny tension and lets us feel the horror in a way that feels fresh and freshly devastating. . . . The Book of Aron doesn't let you put it down, doesn't let you stop reading until you get to the end [and] you've lived a lifetime with Aron-for better and for worse, you've done what he's done and thought what he's thinking." -Tony Perez, Tin House"It is the relationship between Aron and Korczak that sits at the heart of the novel [and] it is in the orbit of this entirely good man that Aron's scarred heart begins to heal and expand. . . . Shepard is well known for his media res endings; there is some small mercy in the fact that he employs such an ending here." -Geraldine Brooks, The New York Times Book Review"Surrounded by filth, fear, disease, and danger, Aron-an unpromising child-finds his vocation and his voice. In straightforward and unsparing words, he tells his story, drawing the reader into the war as an inexplicable event that sweeps Aron and his gang of fellow smugglers into a daring mix of childhood bravado, ingenuity, and courage. . . . Shepard tells a heartbreaking and horrific story; he was also inspired by Aron's story, and the story of all children stripped of their lives by uncontrollable forces they cannot understand." -Maron L. Waxman, The Jewish Book Council"A testament to Shepard's storytelling powers [with] vitality, compassion and sardonic humour. . . . The Book of Aron carries the burden of its subject with a mordant frankness at once heartbreaking, refreshing and-hardest won of all-enchanting. Jim Shepard's novel enters a crowded canon and it stands there, head and shoulders, with the best." -Toby Lichtig, The Jewish Quarterly"A work of art [and] moving masterpiece. . . . Shepard turns hell into a testament of love and sacrifice. . . . What better way to rebuke the N
