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The absent moon : a memoir of a short childhood and a long depression / Luiz Schwarcz ; translated by Eric M.B. Becker.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Original language: Portuguese Publisher: New York : Penguin Press, 2023Description: xii, 226 pages ; 19 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780593490723
  • 059349072X
Uniform titles:
  • Ar que me falta. English
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: "A literary sensation in Brazil and now a global publishing event, Luiz Schwarcz's wise and tender memoir bravely interrogates the story of his own ordeal of depression in the context of a family story of murder, dispossession, and silence-the long echo of the Holocaust across generations When Luiz Schwarcz was a child, he was told little about his grandfather and namesake Láios-"Luiz" in Hungarian. Only later would he learn that his grandfather, a devout Hungarian Jew, had defied his country's Nazi occupiers by holding secret religious services in his home and, after being put on a train to a German death camp with his son André, had ordered André to leap from the train to freedom at a rail crossing while Láios himself was carried on to his death. What Luiz did know was that his father was a very unhappy man, and his melancholia haunted the house. The noise that defined childhood for Luiz was that of his father in the next bedroom, tortured by insomnia, striking his foot against the bed post, seemingly for hours, night after night. Young Luiz assumed responsibility for his parents' happiness, as many children of trauma do, and for a time he seemed to be succeeding: he blossomed into the family prodigy, becoming an outwardly gregarious, athletic, and academically successful young man, eventually growing into a literary publisher of great promise. His house was still filled with silence, but he found a home in that silence-a home that he filled with books and with reading. But then, at a high point of outward success, Luiz was brought low by a devastating mental breakdown against which his resources were pitifully inadequate. The Absent Moon is in part the story of his journey to that point and in part his journey back from it, as Luiz learned to forge a different, more honest relationship with his own mind, with his family, and with their shared past. The culmination of that path is this extraordinary book, which is beautiful, tragic, noble, piercingly honest, and ultimately redemptive-the product of a lifetime's reflection, animated by love and compassion and given powerful literary shape in the refiner's fire by a master storyteller"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography SCHWARCZ L. S399 Available 33111010969562
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A profoundly emotional book, and a brave one." -- The New Yorker

A literary sensation in Brazil, Luiz Schwarcz's brave and tender memoir interrogates his ordeal of bipolar disorder in the context of a family story of murder, dispossession, and silence--the long echo of the Holocaust across generations

As a child, Luiz Schwarcz knew little about his grandfather and namesake, Lajos. Only later did he learn that Lajos, a devout Hungarian Jew, had been put on a train to a Nazi death camp with his son André, whom he ordered to leap to freedom at a rail crossing while he himself was carried on to death. What young Luiz did know was that his father, André, who had emigrated to Brazil, was an unhappy and silent man. Luiz blossomed into the family prodigy, becoming a groundbreaking literary publisher. He found a home in the family silence--a home that he filled with reading.

But then, at a high point of outward success, Luiz was brought low by a mental breakdown. The Absent Moon is the story of his journey both to that point and back from it, as Luiz learned to forge a more honest relationship with his own mind, with his family, and with their shared past. The culmination is this extraordinary book--the product of a lifetime's reflection, by a master storyteller.

"A literary sensation in Brazil and now a global publishing event, Luiz Schwarcz's wise and tender memoir bravely interrogates the story of his own ordeal of depression in the context of a family story of murder, dispossession, and silence-the long echo of the Holocaust across generations When Luiz Schwarcz was a child, he was told little about his grandfather and namesake Láios-"Luiz" in Hungarian. Only later would he learn that his grandfather, a devout Hungarian Jew, had defied his country's Nazi occupiers by holding secret religious services in his home and, after being put on a train to a German death camp with his son André, had ordered André to leap from the train to freedom at a rail crossing while Láios himself was carried on to his death. What Luiz did know was that his father was a very unhappy man, and his melancholia haunted the house. The noise that defined childhood for Luiz was that of his father in the next bedroom, tortured by insomnia, striking his foot against the bed post, seemingly for hours, night after night. Young Luiz assumed responsibility for his parents' happiness, as many children of trauma do, and for a time he seemed to be succeeding: he blossomed into the family prodigy, becoming an outwardly gregarious, athletic, and academically successful young man, eventually growing into a literary publisher of great promise. His house was still filled with silence, but he found a home in that silence-a home that he filled with books and with reading. But then, at a high point of outward success, Luiz was brought low by a devastating mental breakdown against which his resources were pitifully inadequate. The Absent Moon is in part the story of his journey to that point and in part his journey back from it, as Luiz learned to forge a different, more honest relationship with his own mind, with his family, and with their shared past. The culmination of that path is this extraordinary book, which is beautiful, tragic, noble, piercingly honest, and ultimately redemptive-the product of a lifetime's reflection, animated by love and compassion and given powerful literary shape in the refiner's fire by a master storyteller"-- Provided by publisher.

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