Review: "The Absent Moon" by Luiz Schwarcz

 

The Absent Moon by Luiz Schwarcz
English translation published February 2023 via Penguin
★★★

A treatise on depression, told within the twin contexts of Schwarcz's family history and his previous writings.

I read this largely for the family history. Schwarcz's father, André, escaped imprisonment in Bergen-Belsen because his own father, Láios, pushed him to escape—but that escape was the last time he saw Láios, who ultimately did not survive the Holocaust. That experience shaped André's life, and in turn Schwarcz's.

The second context for this memoir is those earlier works—as Schwarcz takes the reader though his story, he often pauses to explain what story or book (published or unpublished) he wrote at a particular point in time, and where in his family story the inspiration came from. Without having read any of those earlier works, the impression I get is one of someone haunted by family history and trying to make sense of it, but I think it might have been beneficial to read some of his fiction before reading The Absent Moon.

I'm reminded somewhat of One Friday in April, and also of An Exclusive Love, albeit for different reasons. Better for fans of the former, I think. I'm glad to have gotten my hands on this but not sorry that it's a relatively short book.