Set in Paris, this prize-winning novel depicts a young Jewish boy's conflict when he is confronted by two contrasting worlds after the war. His parents rededicate themselves to their faith whilst his influences are cafe conversations, fervent intellectual discussions, laughter and love. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Winner of both the Prix Hermes and the Prix Bonardi in France, this lyric first novel focuses on a Jewish boy stumbling into manhood in Paris in the aftermath of World War II. Daniel is caught between conflicting worldsthe carefree meadows of the French countryside and the demands of the Torah placed before him while still in his highchair. His parents are Holocaust survivors; his sister Edith, 10 years older, was born in the shadow of the concentration camps. When the family moves to Paris seeking a better, more Jewish life, Daniel wants only to escape the grinding Sabbaths and the chanting in the synagogue where his father is sexton and above which they live, four in a tiny room. Edith breaks away from this suffocating universe through an arranged marriage to a cantor from London, leaving Daniel to cope alone with his obsessive, orthodox father. Steeped in religious ritual and the Holocaust memories his parents live out every day, he matriculates at Nanterre. Only after he falls in love with a Christian woman does he begin to reconcile his two lives. Together they journey to the village in Transylvania where his parents were born. This moving, first-person narrative resonates with Daniel's vitality and his struggle to find his proper place. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal In this sensitive and tasteful novel, which received both the Prix Hermes and the Prix Bonardi, a post-Holocaust Parisian Jew sullenly withdraws from his Jewish identity. When the novel ends in 1967, this Nanterre student has made a pilgrimage to his family's old village in Romania (Elie Wiesel's Sighet) with his Gentile girlfriend and has completed his annual visit to his surrogate parents in Tel Aviv. He is on the brink of a decision: can he assimilate on his terms alone or will he, like his fanatical father and abused mother, inescapably become a caretaker, too? Henry's fine translation inconspicuously explains the Jewish terminology to non-Jewish readers. Marilyn Gaddis Rose, SUNY at Binghamton Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.