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Summary
Summary
Martin Fletcher has captivated television audiences for thirty-five years as a foreign correspondent for NBC News. Now, Fletcher combines his own family's history with meticulous research in this gripping story of a young Jewish family struggling to stay afloat after World War II.
London, October 1945.nbsp; Austrian refugees Georg and Edith await the birth of their first child. Yet how can they celebrate when almost every day brings news of another relative or friend murdered in the Holocaust? Their struggle to rebuild their lives is further threatened by growing anti-Semitism in London's streets; Englishmen want to take homes and jobs from Jewish refugees and give them to returning servicemen.
Edith's father is believed to have survived, and finding him rests on Georg's shoulders. Then Georg learns of a plot by Palestinian Jews to assassinate Britain's foreign minister. Georg must try to stop the murder, all the while navigating a city that wants to "eject the aliens."
In The List, Fletcher investigates an ignored and painful chapter in London's history. The novel is both a breathless thriller of postwar sabotage and a heartrending and historically accurate portrait of an almost forgotten era. In this sensitive, deeply touching, and impossible-to-forget story, Martin Fletcher explores the themes of hope, prejudice, loss and love that make up the lives of all refugees everywhere.
Author Notes
MARTIN FLETCHER is one of the most respected television news correspondents in the world and he is also rapidly gaining an equally impressive reputation as a writer. He has won many awards, including five Emmys, a Columbia University DuPont Award, several Overseas Press Club Awards, and the National Jewish Book Award. Fletcher and his wife, Hagar, have raised three sons. He spent many years as the NBC News Bureau Chief in Tel Aviv and he is currently based in Israel and New York, where he isa Special Correspondent for NBC News
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In NBC special correspondent Fletcher's satisfactory first novel, Viennese Jewish refugees Edith and Georg Fleischer build their new life in 1945 London while Zionist revolutionaries plot an assassination that could jeopardize all asylum seekers in Britain. Living in a Hampstead boarding house, the Fleischers are expecting their first child while waiting to hear news of their relatives (most of whom perished in concentration or death camps) and find out whether they can stay in Britain. Edith's cousin Anna arrives, but her time at Auschwitz has changed her almost beyond recognition. After Edith makes a speech at a meeting about repatriation petitions, Georg becomes a target for retribution. The mysterious Ismael, an Egyptian Arab living at the boarding house, steps in to protect Georg, beginning an unlikely alliance. Meanwhile, in Palestine, the Lehi-a group considered to be freedom fighters, or terrorists, take your pick-plot to force out the British and open the border to any Jews who wish to enter. There are jarring shifts in point of view and shallow descriptions, but the novel's warmth and humor will have readers rooting for the Fleischers and the neighbors who, in the wake of horror, become their new family. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
NBC special correspondent Fletcher (Walking Israel, 2010) makes his fiction debut with a moving novel based on his parents' lives. In London at the end of WWII, the Jewish refugees who settled there to escape Hitler are facing anti-Semitism in their new home. Edith and Georg, who are expecting their first child, spend their days looking for work and trying to learn the fates of the family members left behind in Vienna. Edith mends nylon stockings, while Georg, a lawyer, tries to find a suitable position. Battling the prevailing attitude that Jews are occupying real estate and filling jobs that should belong to returning British soldiers, they often wonder why they left Europe. Still, visits to the refugee center to check the lists of the dead and the missing remind them of their luck. A long-lost cousin, Anna, who survived the camps, finds them and moves in among the eccentric occupants of their boardinghouse. She befriends Ismail, an Arab from Cairo who is involved in mysterious business. The British occupation of Palestine and the Zionist efforts including terrorism to create a Jewish homeland are cause for both hope and feat. Fletcher has written a touching story that brings a little-known aspect of Jewish history to life.--Bibel, Barbara Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Walking Israel, 2010, etc.) is more convincing as a domestic observer than a spy/political-thriller writer. As fact-based as this book may be, the narrative is a bit too neatly tied up and cozy with coincidence for the novel to gain as much traction as it could have. But this is still a powerful, affecting work. A post-Holocaust novel that should be required reading wherever lessons about the plight of modern-day European Jews are taught.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Anna had been in London a week and hadn't left the house. She said she was cold but they knew that wasn't it. There were no secrets when three people slept in one bed. Anna's groans, her gasps, the moans and sighs, like a whimpering kitten, the sudden turning: they could feel her lying awake, sense her anguish, and when Edith asked if she was asleep, Anna would turn around and not answer. Georg would try the sofa but it was too short. Edith would try next but the sofa was too narrow for her belly which she supported with a pillow. Whenever Anna offered to sleep on the sofa, they wouldn't let her. So they slept together in the crowded bed and the springs creaked and the mattress rose and fell as Anna tossed and turned. When she did sleep, she mumbled and called out. They tried, but could never understand a word. In the morning she was soaked in sweat. If Anna was haunted by what she knew, Edith was tormented by what she didn't know; her sleep was almost as restless. She fidgeted and squirmed and holding Georg's hand would squeeze so hard it hurt. She dreamed of her father most nights, and if she didn't have dreams about him, she dreamed of the baby. Mostly she sensed the pain of birth: pushing and squeezing of her organs, the effort. She couldn't remember the details, just the finality of it, the end of waiting, the end of a journey, the new beginning, but somehow the baby dreams merged with her father dreams, one roiling mixed image of pain, helplessness, waiting and, above all, hoping, that Papi would come, that the baby would come, and that all would be good again, all together. Georg slept well. For him, it was easier. He knew. He had been the first of everyone to find out. Gassed in Maydanek. The whole family. He didn't want to know what 'gassed' really meant, what terrible things happened on the way to being 'gassed.' What a word. But at least it was over. He didn't have the anguish of not knowing, the torment of waiting, for a phone, a letter, a rumor, searching the lists. Some refugees had joined aid groups so they could look for survivors themselves. A soldier had found his own mother in Bergen-Belsen. One refugee with enough money for a rail ticket had returned to his family home in Vienna and been chased away by Austrians living in it. He asked if any other relatives had shown up. They shouted and threatened to kill him if he came back. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were looking for millions of relatives all over Europe. They were learning too slowly who was alive and who was dead. But Georg knew his family's fate, and while what he knew could not have been worse, now at least he could think of his future, not only his past. Others were frozen, in limbo, paralysed by not knowing. For them the present was just a way-station between the past and the future. Georg's whole focus now was the future, starting again, with the baby. He was scared for Edith though. Ever since Anna had told her that Papi may still be alive, she had been crazed, had called everywhere: the Red Cross, the Austrian Center, the Association of Jewish Refugees, Bloomsbury House, Woburn House, the Quakers, the British army information center and the American army public information office, and all gave the same answer: fill out the tracing forms, and wait. There is nothing else to do. When the Americans and the British liberated concentration camps they had listed the names of all the survivors and were slowly matching their names with other family members across Europe and in America. But the Russians kept no records, just opened the gates, and the survivors trickled out and drifted off as best they could. Anna was the first to return, a living phantom. But where was Papi? Anna said he had been sick; that was nine months ago; by now he must be better. He was a soldier, a doctor, if anybody could survive, he could. But then why hadn't he been in touch, why hadn't he found them? One call to the Red Cross and they would have traced her. Why hadn't he done that? Where was Papi? Many Jews had been hauled off to Russian jails, maybe he was a prisoner? Was he sick somewhere, had he lost his memory, did he need help? She had written to a Christian friend in Vienna asking him to visit the house, to see if anybody was there or if the neighbors knew anything. Edith lay on her back next to Anna, staring at the ceiling. They were both silent, and sleepless, their minds racing. Edith squeezed Georg's hand so hard he winced. * Anna had been in London a week and hadn't left the house. She said she was cold but they knew that wasn't it. There were no secrets when three people slept in one bed. Anna's groans, her gasps, the moans and sighs, like a whimpering kitten, the sudden turning: they could feel her lying awake, sense her anguish, and when Edith asked if she was asleep, Anna would turn around and not answer. Georg would try the sofa but it was too short. Edith would try next but the sofa was too narrow for her belly which she supported with a pillow. Whenever Anna offered to sleep on the sofa, they wouldn't let her. So they slept together in the crowded bed and the springs creaked and the mattress rose and fell as Anna tossed and turned. When she did sleep, she mumbled and called out. They tried, but could never understand a word. In the morning she was soaked in sweat. If Anna was haunted by what she knew, Edith was tormented by what she didn't know; her sleep was almost as restless. She fidgeted and squirmed and holding Georg's hand would squeeze so hard it hurt. She dreamed of her father most nights, and if she didn't have dreams about him, she dreamed of the baby. Mostly she sensed the pain of birth: pushing and squeezing of her organs, the effort. She couldn't remember the details, just the finality of it, the end of waiting, the end of a journey, the new beginning, but somehow the baby dreams merged with her father dreams, one roiling mixed image of pain, helplessness, waiting and, above all, hoping, that Papi would come, that the baby would come, and that all would be good again, all together. Georg slept well. For him, it was easier. He knew. He had been the first of everyone to find out. Gassed in Maydanek. The whole family. He didn't want to know what 'gassed' really meant, what terrible things happened on the way to being 'gassed.' What a word. But at least it was over. He didn't have the anguish of not knowing, the torment of waiting, for a phone, a letter, a rumor, searching the lists. Some refugees had joined aid groups so they could look for survivors themselves. A soldier had found his own mother in Bergen-Belsen. One refugee with enough money for a rail ticket had returned to his family home in Vienna and been chased away by Austrians living in it. He asked if any other relatives had shown up. They shouted and threatened to kill him if he came back. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were looking for millions of relatives all over Europe. They were learning too slowly who was alive and who was dead. But Georg knew his family's fate, and while what he knew could not have been worse, now at least he could think of his future, not only his past. Others were frozen, in limbo, paralysed by not knowing. For them the present was just a way-station between the past and the future. Georg's whole focus now was the future, starting again, with the baby. He was scared for Edith though. Ever since Anna had told her that Papi may still be alive, she had been crazed, had called everywhere: the Red Cross, the Austrian Center, the Association of Jewish Refugees, Bloomsbury House, Woburn House, the Quakers, the British army information center and the American army public information office, and all gave the same answer: fill out the tracing forms, and wait. There is nothing else to do. When the Americans and the British liberated concentration camps they had listed the names of all the survivors and were slowly matching their names with other family members across Europe and in America. But the Russians kept no records, just opened the gates, and the survivors trickled out and drifted off as best they could. Anna was the first to return, a living phantom. But where was Papi? Anna said he had been sick; that was nine months ago; by now he must be better. He was a soldier, a doctor, if anybody could survive, he could. But then why hadn't he been in touch, why hadn't he found them? One call to the Red Cross and they would have traced her. Why hadn't he done that? Where was Papi? Many Jews had been hauled off to Russian jails, maybe he was a prisoner? Was he sick somewhere, lost his memory, did he need help? She had written to a Christian friend in Vienna asking him to visit the house, to see if anybody was there or if neighbors knew anything. Edith lay on her back next to Anna, staring at the ceiling. They were both silent, and sleepless, their minds racing. Edith squeezed Georg's hand so hard he winced. * Excerpted from The List by Martin Fletcher All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
