Psalm 44

Written when the author was 25 and receiving its first English translation now, this novel has the feeling of an apprentice work by a writer of great promise. Though Jakob and Marija are inmates in a concentration camp during WWII, Jakob’s medical training makes him valuable to their captors. Marija has had their child and is plotting to escape, along with other prisoners, with the help of the elusive Maks who “she had still never seen but who had existed for her for months now as a synonym for salvation.” There are many fine details, such as when the camp inmates, despite their misery, sing a song entitled “The Girl I Adore,” but the book is unfocused and, even though it clocks in at well under 200 pages, too long. (Aug.)