Fall

Minco, the prominent Dutch author of The Glass Bridge , here returns to the irremediable sorrows of the Holocaust survivor. Frieda Borgstein, resident of a model home for seniors in Amsterdam, prepares to celebrate her birthday for the first time in 40 years. To those around her, she appears a paragon of self-possession and strength; nevertheless, she cannot defend herself from appalling memories of the night in 1942 when, on the verge of fleeing to Switzerland, the rest of her family was betrayed to the Nazis while mere chance spared her. Minco periodically interrupts Frieda's story to set up the inevitable sequence of events that will kill Frieda on the eve of her 85th birthdaythis doesn't give anything away . The aftermath of this tragedy prompts a more subtle analysis of disaster itself: What is a trap laid for destruction, the author asks, and what is simply a fall occasioned by an indifferent force of destiny? Minco's unadorned and lean style points up the precise determination of her plot. (Nov.)