Lost

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

Until he was eight years old the narrator of this painfully comic tale believed that he was his mother's only living child. That the adored baby Arnold, seen on a white rug in sunny photographs, had died - but no - at eight he was 'old enough to be told' that Arnold had been handed to a strange woman to keep him, momentarily, out of the sight of marauding Russians, and that, though never seen again, the likelihood is that he is still alive. Arnold, and his perfect smiling baby presence, haunts the whole family who dedicate their lives to looking for him. Set against the bleak background of post-war Germany the poet, professor and essayist Treichel tells his pathetic tale in short clean sentences that seem to peel away all comfort from the remaining unloved child who is forced to follow his parents from professor's laboratory to village shop, (fighting an urgent desire to be sick in the car all the way) in a fruitless effort to find the lost one - the apple of his mother's eye - the torment of his brother's dreams. Elegantly written in German and ably translated by Janeway, this is a book that leaves its mark deeply imprinted on the mind of the reader, not least because it allegorizes the post-reunification pangs of the German nation. (Kirkus UK)