Soon after Hitler rose to power, Joseph Roth’s books were burned in the streets of Berlin. But what if a copy of Rebellion, Roth’s third novel, were secreted away and handed down through the generations? Here, Hamilton (Dublin Palms; Every Single Minute) muses on that possibility and positions Rebellion itself as the narrator. The story unfolds around Lena, who inherits the book and discovers a hand-drawn map inside. While she is en route to Germany to follow the map’s trail, the book is stolen, and her chance encounter with survivors of the Second Chechen War leads to the denouement of the story. The copy of Rebellion narrates this journey while also regaling readers with the story written on its own pages, interspersed with details of Joseph Roth’s life. Hamilton parallels and interweaves the lives of these characters to flatten and preserve the conversation between the past and the present. VERDICT Much like Ian McEwan’s Nutshell, narrated by a fetus, Hamilton’s latest novel conceals a clever literary element with beautiful prose and a deeper meditation on time itself.