The Aftermath, Rhidian Brook
The Aftermath, Rhidian Brook
2 Rating(s)
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

The Aftermath

Author: Rhidian Brook

Narrator: Leighton Pugh

Unabridged: 9 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/17/2013


Synopsis

1946, post-World War II Hamburg. While thousands wander the rubble, lost and homeless, Colonel Lewis Morgan, charged with overseeing the rebuilding of this devastated city and the denazification of its defeated people, is stationed in a grand house on the River Elbe. He is awaiting the arrival of his wife, Rachael—still grieving for their eldest son—and their only surviving son, Edmund. But rather than force the owners of the house, a German widower and his rebellious daughter, out onto the streets, Lewis insists that the two families live together. In this charged atmosphere, both parents and children will be forced to confront their true selves as enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal, to their deepest desires, their fiercest loyalties, and the transforming power of forgiveness.

This courageous new novel from award-winning author Rhidian Brook tells an emotionally riveting story of two families, one house, and love grown from hate.

About The Author

RHIDIAN BROOK is an award-winning writer of fiction, television, and film. His debut novel The Testimony of Taliesin Jones won the Somerset Maugham Award, a Betty Trask Award, and the Author's Club Best First Novel Award. His stories have appeared in The Paris Review and New Statesman. He lives in London with his wife and two children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Alejandro on January 21, 2019

Great novel indeed! IN WAR, NOBODY TRULY WINS I have history with this book... ...since I knew about it since almost it was published and even I bought it... ...but as many of us, readers, happens, we put the book in a box... ...and later you forgets that you have to read it! When I found out that......more

Goodreads review by Kimberly on February 28, 2013

As a fan of historical fiction, I knew this book wouldn’t have to work hard to win me over. However, I didn’t know how easily the characters would draw me into their lives--into a world of motherless children and childless mothers, a world trying to live again amongst the rubble of broken buildings,......more

Goodreads review by Maria on April 09, 2019

¿Alguna vez habéis visto el tráiler de una película y sentido la necesidad de leer el libro? Yo no. Lo reconozco, no soy mucho de películas. Pero siempre hay un primera vez y me alegro que haya sido con este libro. La pluma del autor es embriagadora, como si de alguna manera pudieras beber un té y u......more


Quotes

“Rhidian Brook’s arresting novel brings vividly to life a little-told aspect of World War II: its aftermath. His story—energetically and authoritatively told—is unsettling and compelling, suffused with suffering and, mercifully, some hope.” —Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs

“Brook’s masterly novel . . . wrings every drop of feeling out of a gripping human situation, and his vignettes of war-ravaged Hamburg are superb.” The Mail on Sunday 
 
 “Brook’s beautifully written novel ponders issues of decency, guilt, and forgiveness . . . Profoundly moving.” The Independent 
  
“Reading The Aftermath, one can’t help but wonder if this is the sort of literary memorialization (albeit from a British author) that Sebald might have wished for.”Washington Post

“Superb . . . Conjuring surprise after surprise as it shows how the forces of politics and history penetrate even the most intimate moments of its characters’ emotional lives . . . The house on the Elbe [is] akin to Hamlet’s Elsinore.” The Guardian 
 
“A moving, always enthralling journey into the dark and light of history. Rhidian Brook has written a brilliant novel.”  —Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland 
 
 
“Brook is wonderful at evoking the atmosphere of this forgotten time and place . . . There is much to think about here.” The Times (London) 
  
“Brook’s excellent novel [is] a captivating tale of love among the ruins but also of treachery and vengeance . . . It does what all good novels should do: it poses many complex questions and resists neat, topped-and-tailed answers.” Literary Review 
  
“Brook addresses weighty themes—forgiveness, familial loss—with a light touch . . . Brings to mind no less a novel than J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun.” Financial Times 
 

“Rhidian Brook takes a piece of history I thought I knew well and breaks it open; The Aftermath is a compelling, surprising, and moving novel.” —Sadie Jones, author of The Uninvited Guests