An ocean and roughly six years separate Rachel Perlman from the horrors of World War II, yet in Shadows of Berlin, David R. Gillham's third novel, life as a Manhattan housewife can't erase the trauma and memories that haunt her.
Rachel's experiences--living undercover as an adolescent, hiding from the Gestapo who patrol Berlin, her new life as a refugee in New York in 1949--underscore the dramatic contrasts that trauma survivors often face. Her marriage to Aaron, "a Jew from Flatbush," offers love and security. But Rachel can neither disclose nor forget her horrible secret, and "it's her guilt that pushes her to mad thoughts. But her desire for a just atonement is strong. Biblical, even." Gillham (Annelies) alternates seamlessly between passages set in Berlin and New York to reveal Rachel's past and present. He liberally weaves in Yiddish and German, both languages serving as a reminder of the lives Rachel must bridge. Imaginary conversations with the specter of her mother--her "eema," who appears in the "clogs and rags" of Auschwitz--are haunting. Her mother had been a renowned artist in Berlin, and a famous portrait that appears in New York (in a credible turn of events) leads Rachel to confront the most horrific episode of her life.
Shadows of Berlin and its details of Jewish persecution balance the tragedy of the Holocaust with glimpses of hope and redemption, the latter bringing Rachel closer to healing and peace. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.