The Postcard

WINNER OF THE AMERICAN CHOIX GONCOURT PRIZE

WINNER OF THE RENAUDOT YOUTH PRIZE

WINNER OF THE ELLE MAGAZINE READERS PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE GONCOURT PRIZE

Incredibly moving and brilliantly told, Anne Berest's luminous and unforgettable new book The Postcard is the most acclaimed and beloved French novel in recent years.

At once a gripping investigation into family secrets, a poignant tale of mothers and daughters, and an enthralling portrait of 20th-century Parisian intellectual and artistic life, The Postcard tells the story of a family devastated by the Holocaust and yet somehow restored by love and the power of storytelling. Masterful, heartbreaking, funny, atmospheric, and a sheer joy to read, The Postcard is certain to find fans among readers of Iréne Nermirovsky's Suite Francaise, Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, and Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.

January 2003. Among the usual holiday cards, an anonymous postcard is delivered to the Berest family home. On the front, a photo of the Opéra Garnier in Paris; on the back, the four names of Anne Berest's maternal great-grandparents, Ephraïm and Emma, and their children, Noémie and Jacques--all of whom died at Auschwitz in 1942.

Twenty years after the postcard is delivered, Anne is moved to discover who sent it, and why. Aided by her chain-smoking mother, countless family, friends, and associates, a private detective, a graphologist, and many others, she embarks on a journey to uncover the fate of the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris, and then the war and its aftermath. What emerges is a thrilling tale that shatters her certainties about her family, her country, and herself.