by Rose Tremain
First published 2017
Gustav Perle grows up in Matzlingen, a small Swiss town where World War Two registers only as a distant rumble. His mother Emilie raises him alone, and though Gustav loves her, she returns that love with a cold, punishing severity he cannot understand. At school he meets Anton Zweibel, a Jewish boy his own age who is gifted, volatile, and already drawn to the piano. The two boys form a bond that becomes the defining relationship of both their lives. The novel moves between the 1930s and the 1990s, gradually uncovering why Emilie is so bitter. Her husband, Gustav's father, made a wartime choice rooted in conscience, and that choice cost the family everything. His story runs beneath Gustav's like a root system, shaping the man Gustav becomes without his knowing it. As adults, Gustav and Anton pull apart and find their way back to each other. Anton pursues a concert career; Gustav holds quieter ground. What the book asks, and answers slowly, is whether a friendship formed in childhood can survive the weight of two full lives. The answer arrives not in triumph but in something steadier and more honest than that.
Genres: drama, literary-fiction, friendship, historical-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary
Vibes: bittersweet, intimate, introspective, lyrical, melancholic, thought-provoking
Tropes: childhood-bond, friends-to-lovers-and-back, generational-trauma, time-spanning-narrative
Setting: Matzlingen, Switzerland
Period: 1930s, 1990s, World War II
310 pages · Paperback · Chatto & Windus
Content warnings: emotional-abuse, war