FUGITIVE PIECES

Anne Michaels. FUGITIVE PIECES. McClelland & Stewart, 1996.

In my memory, I have tried unsuccessfully at least three times to read this, Anne Michaels' first novel. My reasons included: I could not locate a setting. Two place names, B, a town or city, & Z, an island. Names I could not pronounce nor locate. And then the heavy burden of words again which I could neither pronounce nor define. And beginning from a child's POV, Jakob. I remember saying that even after seeing the movie, I could not follow the story. But after reading her Giller winning HELD, I determined to try again. Success. And, to my surprise, a note at the end, a date in 1998, when I completed a first reading. What?

Okay. So I think I've sorted out the plot and characters. Boy Jakob hides underground from the uniforms. Poland. Parents and beloved sister Bella dead. Rescued by Athos, taken to a Greek island, Z.., where they hide out through the Italian and then the Nazi occupation, reading and learning. After the war they move to Athens. Then Athos accepts a job in Toronto where Jakob grows up. Athos dies. Jakob maintains friendship with Maurice and wife and marries Alex. She leaves after 7 years. Jakob publishes Athos' writing and his own poetry, Groundwork. He goes to Greece to take Athos' ashes. Back in TO, Maurice tries to set him up until finally he meets Michaela. They live in Greece. Jakob is a celebrity in TO. At one of Maurice's parties, Ben and Naomi attend. Ben is doing his thesis on Jakob. Ben's parents are Holocaust survivors too. Ben is jealous of how close Naomi is to his parents. His father has always been critical. Ben travels to Greece seeking Jakob's journals. Lives with Petra for a while while searching unsuccessfully. She messes things up and he kicks her out. Then he finds the journals, and a scarf reminding him of Naomi, and flies home hoping to reconcile.

It seems to me that the book is about the intergenerational trauma experienced by victims of the Holocaust and children of Holocaust survivors. Anxiety, hunger, and fear of loving because what you love dies. Told using images and figures of speech of travel, geography, geology, climatology, and poetry.