About the Book
Title: The Kaminsky Cure
Author: Christopher New
Genre: Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction
The
Kaminsky Cure is
a poignant yet comedic novel of a half Jewish/half Christian family caught up
in the machinery of Hitler’s final solution. The matriarch, Gabi, was born
Jewish but converted to Christianity in her teens. The patriarch, Willibald, is
a Lutheran minister who, on one hand is an admirer of Hitler, but on the other
hand, the conflicted father of children who are half-Jewish. Mindful and
resentful of her husband’s ambivalence, Gabi is determined to make sure her
children are educated, devising schemes to keep them in school even after
learning that any child less than 100% Aryan will eventually be kept from
completing education. She even hires tutors who are willing to teach
half-Jewish children and in this way comes to hire Fraulein Kaminsky who shows
Gabi how to cure her frustration and rage: to keep her mouth filled with water
until the urge to scream or rant has passed.
Author Bio
Christopher
New was born in England and was educated at
Oxford and Princeton Universities. Philosopher as well as novelist, he founded
the Philosophy Department in Hong Kong University, where he taught for many years
whilst writing The China Coast Trilogy (Shanghai, The Chinese Box and A Change
of Flag) and Goodbye Chairman Mao, as well as The Philosophy of
Literature. He now divides his time between Europe and Asia and has
written novels set in India (The Road to Maridur), Egypt (A Small Place in the
Desert) and Europe (The Kaminsky Cure). His books have been translated into
Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese and Portuguese. His latest novel, Gage Street Courtesan, appeared in March 2013.
Links
Book Excerpt
Well here I am at five
and three-quarters
It’s Christmas 1939 in a little Austrian village that’s now part of
Hitler’s Third Reich and I’m just beginning to notice things. Like what my
brother and sisters are about and why my parents are often crying and my father
usually shouting when he isn’t crying. I think it has something to do with the
war we’re fighting, which according to the wireless is due to The International
Jewish Con-spiracy, whatever that is. But that’s not all. I don’t know it yet,
but I was born at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
Not that it wasn’t quite an achievement getting me born at all. I
arrived too early, presented myself the wrong way round (Was I trying to climb
back inside? You couldn’t blame me), there was no doctor, and the midwife had
to yank me out like a cork from a bottle. No wonder I protested. No wonder my
mother never had another child, either—both of us had had enough. But anyway
there I was, a pint-sized runt, the last of the litter, and that’s how I’ve
stayed.
Achievement or not though, you could say my getting born, or conceived
for that matter, was really a big mistake. First of all there’s the as yet
unraised question of my paternity. (Paternity’s
going to be a favorite topic in my family.) And then there’s the
un-doubted fact, though I don’t know that yet either, that my mother Gabi is a
Jew (she converted to Christianity in her teens), while my very Aryan father
Willibald Brinkmann—if he is my father—is a Lutheran pastor who has a sneaking
admiration for Hitler. (Many Lutheran pastors have, and for some of them it
isn’t sneaking, ei-ther—they’re openly trying to prove that Jesus wasn’t really
a Jew.) On top of that they don’t like each other anyway.
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