GRAPHIC NOVELS

In Paradise

by Peter Matthiessen
6 CDs. 6½ hrs. Penguin Audio. 2014. ISBN 9781490619545. $77.75. MP3-CD. Playaway digital. digital download. F
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In Matthiessen's final book (he died in 2014), writer and English professor Clements Olin spends a week in Auschwitz's Nazi officers' quarters along with a group of 140 people who have come to pray and bear witness in an attempt to find closure and healing. Participants come from all over the world and include rabbis, nuns, survivors, and perpetrators. As Clements participates in the tours and discussions, he discovers new, painful, and shocking information about his family and his past. Although Mark Bramhall does an excellent job reading the book and articulating the various accents, it is sometimes difficult to recognize who is speaking.
VERDICT Recommended for libraries with Holocaust collections, though the print version might be easier to follow than the audiobook. ["Not a mere recounting but a persuasive meditation on Auschwitz's history and mythology, this novel from three-time National Book Award winner Matthiessen uses scenes of confrontation, recollection, bitterness, and self-examination to trace aspects of culture that led to the Holocaust and that still reverberate today," read the starred review of the Riverhead hc, LJ 3/15/14.]
Reviewed by Ilka Gordon, Aaron Garber Lib., Beachwood, OH , Jan 30, 2015
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