With me on this episode of Writers at Work is writer and literary critic Heather Clark, whose latest is THE SCRAPBOOK, her fourth book and debut novel.
Heather may be best known for RED COMET: THE SHORT LIFE AND BLAZING ART OF SYLVIA PLATH, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Prior to that, she published THE ULSTER RENAISSANCE: POETRY IN BELFAST 1962-1972 and THE GRIEF OF INFLUENCE: SYLVIA PLATH AND TED HUGHES. A recipient of a PhD from Oxford, Heather also published essays and criticisms in major media in the US and UK.
THE SCRAPBOOK can be summarized as the story of an intense first love haunted by history and family memory, as it is on the dust jacket. I found it fascinating on several levels. Set in 1996, we indeed experience a tenuous love affair between two students, an American from Harvard and a visiting German, Anna. Anna, the American, follows Christoph to his home and he shows her his Germany, aware that her grandfather was among the GIs who witnessed the devastation at the Dachau concentration camp while his grandfather fought for the Wehrmacht, the Nazi armed forces. Thus we are treated to a subtly applied history lesson, one that deals with collective guilt and cultural divide even decades after the World War ended.
What motivates Christoph and whether things will end well is a source of suspense as we accompany Anna venturing into worlds not her own.
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