The Aftermath

Reviews

“Rhidian Brook’s arresting novel brings vividly to life a little-told aspect of World War II: its aftermath. His story—energetically and authoritatively told—is unsettling and compelling, suffused with suffering and, mercifully, some hope.” —Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs

“Brook’s masterly novel . . . wrings every drop of feeling out of a gripping human situation, and his vignettes of war-ravaged Hamburg are superb.” —The Mail on Sunday 
 
 “Brook’s beautifully written novel ponders issues of decency, guilt, and forgiveness . . . Profoundly moving.” —The Independent 
  
“Reading The Aftermath, one can’t help but wonder if this is the sort of literary memorialization (albeit from a British author) that Sebald might have wished for.” —Washington Post

“Superb . . . Conjuring surprise after surprise as it shows how the forces of politics and history penetrate even the most intimate moments of its characters’ emotional lives . . . The house on the Elbe [is] akin to Hamlet’s Elsinore.” —The Guardian 
 
“A moving, always enthralling journey into the dark and light of history. Rhidian Brook has written a brilliant novel.”  —Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland 
  
“Brook is wonderful at evoking the atmosphere of this forgotten time and place . . . There is much to think about here.” —The Times (London) 
  
“Brook’s excellent novel [is] a captivating tale of love among the ruins but also of treachery and vengeance . . . It does what all good novels should do: it poses many complex questions and resists neat, topped-and-tailed answers.” —Literary Review 
  
“Brook addresses weighty themes—forgiveness, familial loss—with a light touch . . . Brings to mind no less a novel than J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun.” —Financial Times 
 
“Rhidian Brook takes a piece of history I thought I knew well and breaks it open; The Aftermath is a compelling, surprising, and moving novel.” —Sadie Jones, author of The Uninvited Guests
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