In 1938, seventeen-year-old Beatrice, an Irish Protestant
lace maker, finds herself at the center of a fairy tale when
she is whisked away from her dreary life to join the Berlin
household of Felix and Dorothea Metzenburg. Art collectors,
and friends to the most fascinating men and women in Europe,
the Metzenburgs introduce Beatrice to a world in which she
finds more to desire than she ever imagined.
But
Germany has launched its campaign of aggression across
Europe, and, before long, the conflict reaches the
Metzenburgs’ threshold. Retreating with Beatrice to their
country estate, Felix and Dorothea do their best to preserve
the traditions of the old world. But the realities of hunger
and illness, as well as the even graver threats of Nazi
terror, the deportation and murder of Jews, and the hordes
of refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army begin to threaten
their existence. When the Metzenburgs are forced to join a
growing population of men and women in hiding, Beatrice,
increasingly attached to the family and its unlikely wartime
community, bears heartrending witness to the atrocities of
the age and to the human capacity for strength in the face
of irrevocable loss.
In searing physical and
emotional detail, The Life of Objects illuminates
Beatrice’s journey from childhood to womanhood, from naïveté
to wisdom, as a continent collapses into darkness around
her. It is Susanna Moore’s most powerful and haunting novel yet.
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