The Hidden Book

Manning (The Jade Lily) offers an immersive narrative of a Holocaust survivor, his daughter, and his granddaughter. In 1987 Australia, 13-year-old Hannah Campbell becomes obsessed with a book of photos brought by her grandfather Nico from Yugoslavia for her mother, Roza. Before Roza hides the book from Hannah, she briefly glimpses images of prisoners at Mauthausen, the Austrian concentration camp Nico survived. Years later, after Hannah delivers her undergraduate honors thesis on Holocaust museums, she asks Roza to let her see the book, and is devastated when Roza says she destroyed it because she found the photos “ugly.” A parallel narrative set in 1945 follows Mauthausen prisoner Mateo, who secretly makes extra copies of the photos he’s ordered to take. He gives the copies to Nico to smuggle out of the camp, hoping to preserve evidence of the Nazis’ crimes. Hannah’s narrative then jumps to the present day, after she’s weathered a divorce and resumed her PhD studies on European war history , with a focus on Mauthausen. Though Hannah and Roza don’t always see eye to eye, Hannah learns to accept her mother’s way of coping with their family’s painful history. Manning nimbly interweaves the dramatic Mauthausen chapters with her nuanced family portrait and captures Hannah’s sense of resolve to honor those who risked their lives during WWII. Readers will be riveted. Agent: Stacy Testa, Writers House. (Aug.)