This is very sad and beautiful story about Daniel, the survivor of a Nazi death camp and the younger of two sons who was left alone by a choice his father made. Later, after being rescued and taken to Kibbutz Gilad by Yoram, Daniel tries to reconcile the fact that his dad also survived the death camp.

At first I felt that this story was not speaking to me because it seemed that the narrator told the story rather than letting the story tell itself. Later, I became very wrapped up in the story because I was intrigued by Daniel's persistent inability to form permanent attachments to others and his continued aloofness with his father.

Most of the book was going back and forth between Daniel's life after the war and Daniel's father declining with advanced lung cancer. Not a book of joy, this novel is, however, a look at a deep psychological wound carried by one person throughout his life. ( )

Haim Kalinsky is a father put in a terrible situation: the Nazi soldiers have told him he must choose one of his sons to live. Instinctively Haim reaches out to his son Shmuel. Why? Why Shmuel and not Daniel? Haim could never answer that question. Ironically, it is Shmuel who ends up dying, and Daniel, who is immediately taken away by the soldiers, who lives.

After the war, Haim remarries and moves on with his quiet life. Then one day he is approached by an Israeli aid worker who offers to help investigate the fate of the two boys. Hope arises in Haim, and eventually he and Daniel are put in touch. But Daniel has never been able to move on with his life. He is consumed by the memories of his father choosing Shmuel over him. After contemplating whether he even wants to write to his father and his new family, Daniel begins a very uneasy relationship with him.

All of these memories are told in flashbacks as Daniel sits in a hotel room across the street from where his father lies dying in a hospital. Indecision about whether to visit him and what he would say if he did, plague Daniel. He reviews his whole life, which he sees as a litany of loss. His final decision is bittersweet.

I found the book a sad study of love, guilt, and loss. I had a hard time relating to Haim's complacent nature and Daniel's unrelenting anger and grief. Post-war Israel must have held many such stories, but I can only hope that some were more hopeful. ( )