The author of the “poignant, powerful, and absolutely riveting” (Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author) memoir Perfection returns with an unforgettable and vividly written account of her late mother’s lost childhood in Nazi-occupied Austria and the parallels she sees between that dark time and present-day America.
To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. It was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where she could be found attending Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera or inspecting a round of French triple crème at Zabar’s.
In truth, Eve had endured a harrowing childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna, though she rarely spoke about it. Yet after her passing, Julie discovered a keepsake box filled with farewell notes from friends and relatives addressed to a ten-year-old girl named Eva—her mother. This was the first clue to the secret pain that Julie’s mother had carried as an immigrant, and it shed light on a family that had to rely on its own perseverance to escape the xenophobia that threatened their survival.
A beautiful blend of personal memoir and family history, Eva and Eve shows how one woman’s search for her mother’s lost childhood offers valuable lessons about the sacrifices people make to save their families during some of the darkest times in history.
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