Joop
Richard Lourie, Anne FrankBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
From internationally renowned author and translator Richard Lourie comes this highly acclaimed fictionalized account of the man who may have betrayed Anne Frank. Set in present-day Amsterdam, Joop begins with the startling confession of an old man—a secret he has never told anyone. Transporting readers through the agonizing Nazi takeover of World War II, Joop recounts his role as a boy seeking his father’s praise and desiring to shelter his family. He figures out a way to provide for them, but in doing so, he sets in motion a chain of events that will horrify the entire world.
Synopsis
"People who don t have secrets imagine them as dark and hidden. It s just the opposite. Secrets are bright. They light you up. Like the bare lightbulb left on in a cell day and night, they give you no rest."
So thinks Joop, the narrator of this brief and bitter tale, whose secret is like no other. He has kept that secret for more than sixty years, but now his brother---whom he has not seen since the end of the war---has suddenly shown up at his door.
Having grown up in North America with only the vaguest memories of World War II, Joop s brother has returned to Amsterdam to find out what his childhood in Holland had been like. But what he discovers is much more than he bargained for---he is startled and dismayed to learn of his own role in the betrayal of Anne Frank.
Transporting readers through the agonizing Nazi takeover of World War II, Joop recounts his role as a boy desiring to feed his starving family. He figures out a way to provide for them, but in doing so, he sets in motion a chain of events that will horrify the entire world.
Just as he did in the internationally acclaimed The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin, here Richard Lourie takes us into not only a person s mind, a time, and a place, but into the treacherous currents of history that sweep lives away. This gripping fictionalized account of the man who betrayed Anne Frank will not soon be forgotten.
The New York Times - Elena Lappin
Most of the book consists of Joop's account of his boyhood in wartime Amsterdam. His portrait of a starving city under Nazi occupation (tulip bulbs were cooked when there was little else to eat) has all the plausibility and cool detachment of a well-researched and carefully edited documentary. It is skillfully done, with minimal, well-placed strokes, written in blunt yet elegant prose. The tensions in Joop's family—the fighting parents; the distant, angry, hard-drinking and sometimes violent father; the weak mother; the nasty uncle who is a member of the Dutch Nazi party; the boy's desperate desire, and failure, to please his parents—serve as a backdrop to Joop's betrayal of Anne Frank.
Editorials
From the Publisher
“Highly recommended. This novel speaks volumes and is destined to be a bestseller and a book club favorite.”- Library Journal“Skillfully done . . . a psychologically astute novel about moral responsibility and the illusion of truth.”- The New York Times Book Review
“Haunting.”- Kirkus Reviews
“Powerfully moving . . . I couldn’t put it down.”- Chicago Jewish Star
Elena Lappin
Most of the book consists of Joop's account of his boyhood in wartime Amsterdam. His portrait of a starving city under Nazi occupation (tulip bulbs were cooked when there was little else to eat) has all the plausibility and cool detachment of a well-researched and carefully edited documentary. It is skillfully done, with minimal, well-placed strokes, written in blunt yet elegant prose. The tensions in Joop's family—the fighting parents; the distant, angry, hard-drinking and sometimes violent father; the weak mother; the nasty uncle who is a member of the Dutch Nazi party; the boy's desperate desire, and failure, to please his parents—serve as a backdrop to Joop's betrayal of Anne Frank.—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
According to Lourie's fictional account, the informant who turned Anne Frank and her family in to the Nazis was a mere adolescent, motivated more by a desire to feed his dying father, who was subsisting on tulip bulbs, than by an obsessive hatred for Jews or by an unalloyed greed. When the brother he hasn't seen for 60 years visits from America, self-pitying Joop confesses his terrible boyhood secret, which he claims prevented him from marrying, cultivating friendships or leading a normal life, and relives the war years. Events include Joop's brief play at sabotage (discovered by a Dutch Nazi uncle and reported to Joop's father, who savagely beats him); Joop surviving diphtheria (he's blamed when a similarly infected sibling dies); and Joop's parents' unhappy marriage and casual anti-Semitism, which cast shadows over his ordinary activities. Lourie's rendering of Anne Frank's fictional betrayer as a callous, misguided youth is stark and deftly written. (Aug.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
Some stories are so compelling that they're retold numerous times and refashioned in numerous different ways in an attempt to keep the human element alive. It's been 60 years since the initial publication of The Diary of Anne Frank, yet internationally acclaimed author and translator Lourie (The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin) manages to bring a new perspective to Anne's story. The novel opens in present-day Amsterdam with an elderly man known as Joop having just confessed a childhood secret he has kept for more than 60 years-a secret that involves Anne Frank. Joop recounts the ugly German takeover of Amsterdam, what it did to his family, and the choices he made to survive. Readers will be surprised at how well the author humanizes the non-Jewish residents of Amsterdam and what they endured while at the same time refusing to diminish the ugliness of what some of them did. Though slim, this novel speaks volumes and is destined to be a best seller and a book club favorite. Highly recommended for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ4/15/07; library marketing campaign planned.-Ed.]
—Marika Zemke