Books: Lost

Author: Hans-Ulrich Treichel

Picador $19.95


A young couple flee Eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War, desperate to escape the Russians. They carry their 1-year-old son but, during a traumatic incident, lose him. Later, safe in the West, they have another son, but the tragedy hangs around them like a pea-soup fog, clogging their lives.

This poignant, desperate tale of their obsession and search for the lost boy is told by that second son, whose life was overshadowed by the brother he never knew. His ironic observations and childish sense of logic provide a bleak, enraging kind of humour.

Wonderful and terrible, this sophisticated portrait of loss ends with a last, painful and surprising shock.