Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind

In her second book, graphic artist Metz dives into her complicated relationship with her mother—or rather, how she came to know more about her mother after her death. This territory is as personal as her New York Times–best-selling first book (Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal), which dealt with her discovery of her husband’s infidelity after his death. Metz doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, including her Jewish mother and grandparents barely escaping from Nazi Vienna. The author digs into her mother’s difficult past, piecing together her family’s prewar history and journey to the United States over the course of more than a decade, so that the author’s own story is told alongside her mother’s. Where historical records don’t exist, Metz imagines scenes that might have happened, including her Viennese family’s holiday celebrations and vacations, and even her grandparents’ honeymoon.