- Paperback: 531 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd (Aug 22 2002)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0006392180
- ISBN-13: 978-0006392187
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.5 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #323,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Brett's mother and father were Holocaust survivors who moved to Australia, where she is still known best and where this wonderful book became a #1 bestseller after its publication about 18 months ago. Brett has a body of work behind her poems, essays and three other novels so why her latest has taken so long to reach these shores, especially with a glowing blurb by no less than Simon Schama, is a mystery. It is the story of Ruth Rothwax, a successful New York businesswoman who decides to take her 80-year-old father, Edek, back to his native Poland to revisit the scenes of his childhood and the camps where he spent the desperate wartime years. Ruth and Edek are both vivid creations, she a highly organized person who speaks her mind and is constantly outraged by the lingering anti-Semitism and evasiveness she finds everywhere in Poland; he a seemingly simple man driven by a powerful lust for life food, friendship and sex. Their adventures in Poland as they revisit Edek's childhood home, barter for some of his expropriated household items and share visits to Auschwitz and Birkenau with busloads of tourists who see themselves as following in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg, are at once haunting, riotously funny and deeply touching. Brett's style is so deceptively easy that the book, though long, reads as swiftly as a thriller; and what might seem a claustrophobic dependence on two characters is avoided by a series of canny devices: Ruth's sardonic meditations on life in New York; a strange meeting with a German hotel guest whose husband wished he was a Jew; the introduction of a pair of lusty Polish widows with their sights set on Edek; and, above all, a series of imaginary conversations Ruth has with Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess, from his postexecution existence in a kind of posthumous limbo, where he must attempt to pass impossible tests for heavenly access. These plumb the depths of the astounding banalities of evil and give the book a surrealistic richness of reference. The hardest effect to bring off in fiction is a vision that is at once tender, deeply comic and yet aware of the ultimate sadness of life, the lachrymae rerum. Brett has succeeded triumphantly in the most delightful surprise of the year so far. Agent, Heather Schroeder, ICM. (Aug.)Forecast: This has real bestseller potential if carefully promoted, and what is so far planned as only a local New York tour could be extended. Powerful reviews and excellent word-of-mouth could make it a natural for handselling by independents.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Library Journal
In poet and novelist Brett's fourth book of fiction, Ruth Rothwax, a successful, single New Yorker, travels to Poland with her elderly father, Edek, to see his boyhood home, remember life before World War II, and confront the horrors of the Holocaust. Only Ruth can hear the voice of an invisible, imaginary character Rudolf H?ss, commandant of Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943 as he speaks to her from the hell he is in. The three main characters triangulate a novel of ideas and memory, family history and world events, improbable conversations and everyday details. Unfortunately, these details weigh the book down and make it overly long it seems that every bite of Edek's breakfast, every street of Ruth's morning jog, every pain in Rudolf's still-aching bones are described. There may be "too many men," but there are also too many words. Readers with plenty of time may enjoy this tale of one family's confrontation with the past; others may prefer to contact their own relatives and collect a personal history before it is too late. Yvette W. Olson, City Univ. Lib., Renton, WA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The last time Ruth Rothwax had been with a group of Germans, she had wanted to poke their eyes out. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The last time Ruth Rothwax had been with a group of Germans, she had wanted to poke their eyes out. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
To Many Men,
By Pam (Washington State USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Too Many Men: A Novel (Paperback)
I thought this was a great book. I was being pulled into it the entire time. I am looking forward to reading the continueing story in her next novel. Does anyone know when that book will be published?
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By A Customer
This review is from: Too Many Men: A Novel (Paperback)
It is too bad that Lily Brett is not better known in the US. This is an excellent easy-to-read and engaging book. I look forward to reading all of her other books.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Too much cannot be said . . .,
By A Customer
This review is from: Too Many Men: A Novel (Paperback)
So much about the story has been written in previous reviews that I feel it would be too repetitive to elaborate on the story line more in this one so I'll just give my opinion: It was very well written and I want to know when the sequel will be out because I can't wait to find out if Ruthie's father and Zophia finally get together. I admit that I didn't care for the Hoss addition to the story. I felt is was unnecessary and didn't add anything to the book. I do think it shared with us --and involved us in-- the ongoing pain that still runs through many survivors' families. I enjoyed it very much -- but must now move on to lighter reading: Harry Potter! of course!
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