by Julie Metz
First published 2021
Julie Metz thought she knew her mother Eve completely. Eve embodied Manhattan sophistication, frequenting Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera, selecting fine cheeses at Zabar's. She spoke little about her childhood, and Julie assumed she had always been a quintessential New Yorker. After Eve's death, Julie finds a keepsake book containing farewell messages written to a ten-year-old girl named Eva. The discovery reveals that her mother had concealed her identity as a refugee who fled Nazi-occupied Vienna. Julie begins tracing her mother's hidden childhood, uncovering a story of political terror and displacement that Eve had buried for decades. The search reveals how ordinary people survived history's darkest periods and the profound sacrifices refugees make when building new lives. Through this investigation, Julie discovers not only her mother's secret pain but also her remarkable resilience in transforming from Eva, the frightened child refugee, into Eve, the confident New Yorker who created a completely new identity in America.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 21st-century, jewish
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, hidden-past, identity
Setting: America, Manhattan, New York, Vienna
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century, Nazi-occupied
1 pages · Audio CD · Simon & Schuster Audio and Blackstone Publishing
Content warnings: war