Hiding Places: A Father and His Sons Retrace Their Family's Escape from the Holocaust

Brilliant and unconventional, this account combines the tale of novelist and PEN Award-winning short-story writer Rose's (Flipping for It) childhood as an assimilated Jewish kid in a mostly Christian Connecticut suburb with another story--a search for both past and future. Rose was a reckless, religiously ambivalent kid with a passion for hiding places (reared as he was on his Belgian-born mother's vivid tales of relatives who were forced to hide from the ""Not-sees""). Now 38 and divorced, Rose, struggling to bond with his sons (Alex, 12, and Marshall, 7), of whom he has partial custody, takes them to Europe to trace the journey that one of his mother's cousins took with his twin daughters in an effort to escape the Nazis (in the end, the father escaped, but the girls were killed). With little to go on but anecdotal evidence and a cryptic diary, Rose and his sons make their way by train, bicycle and on foot through Belgium, France and Spain. As they search for their relatives' various hiding places, they meet strangers who remember the escapees and offer to help guide Rose and his sons to the next hiding place. Rose's accounts of daily life with Alex and Marshall--and of his struggles to make a cohesive family unit--are searingly honest, making for sometimes painful but always compelling reading. Most remarkable, however, is his clear portrayal of the connection between past, present and future, and between self and community. He powerfully illustrates that it's impossible to outrun a bitter legacy, but he also shows how such a legacy can, when confronted, form the foundation for a sweeter future. (May)