Heather Morris interviewed Lale over a number of years and the first iteration of this novel was a screenplay. Subsequently, there is a pervasive filmic tone and the story maintains a propulsive quality. For many readers, this will equate to a satisfying experience, one that is disturbing but redemptive.

One hopes that this story has not been idealised for the purpose of entertainment, even if the higher purpose is one of attempting to elucidate the past. It is not that I do not believe such things are possible – as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, I know they are – but the story’s simple coherence sits uneasily. Writers such as Anne Michaels, W.G. Sebald, Cynthia Ozick, and Bram Presser (The Book of Dirt is a recent Australian release), who explore the limits of our understanding of the event with their difficult slippages and their incorporation of voids, seem to me better equipped for the fractured realm of Holocaust fiction.