First published 2013
In 1938 Graz, Joseph Skizzen's father fabricates a Jewish identity to flee Austria with his family before the Nazi takeover. They settle in London during the war, but Joseph's father mysteriously disappears, leaving the family stranded. Joseph, his mother, and sister relocate to a small Ohio town where Joseph grows into adulthood haunted by abandonment. He learns piano partly to fill the void his father left behind. As he struggles with unspecified guilt and accusation, Joseph constructs an elaborate fantasy identity as a professor planning to create an Inhumanity Museum. Music becomes his refuge, transporting him beyond his fractured reality. Joseph splits between his actual self and his secret invented persona, the latter remaining pure while his real identity accepts blame for humanity's crimes. Through these multiple selves, he navigates the confusion of who he truly is and whether any version of himself counts as more authentic than the others.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, academic
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: multiple-identities, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Austria, Graz, London, Ohio
Period: 1938, World War II
395 pages · Hardcover · Knopf