Bruce J. Berger

The Music Stalker is a prequel to Berger's Flight of the Veil. It is set up as Max recounting his sister Kayla's career as a musical child prodigy from 1963 to 1980. The characters are well fleshed out and the details about each character drew me into the story. I enjoyed the specific references to music and I even listened to some of the pieces Kayla was learning/performing while I read. The book deals with religion (specifically Judaism), schizophrenia and intergenerational trauma. I appreciated the sibling rivalry between Max and Kayla. There was a nice push and pull from Max’s perspective between being jealous of his sister’s success and wanting what is best for her. I found this book to have a slower pace than I was expecting.… (more)

Nicky Covo is a Holocaust survivor. In 1990, Nicky – a Brooklyn psychiatrist – receives a letter from Abbess Fevronia, the head of a women’s monastery in Greece. Although Nicky believes the rest of his family died at Auschwitz, he learns that Theodora, a mysteriously silent nun who’s lived at the monastery since 1944, may be his baby sister, Kal. With his old friend and new love, Helen, Nicky returns to Greece – to harrowing memories of his fighting with the partisans and to a reunion with his beloved sister. The Flight of the Veil explores the intersections of guilt and memory, faith and tragedy, fate and miracle.

MY REVIEW:

This is an historical novel set in Greece and New York and is provocative in the extreme with tensions between the Christian and Judaism religious traditions. We meet a mature Nicky, the psychiatrist and atheist returning to a place of many nightmares accompanied by the widow Helen whom he loves and has loved. And then we meet ‘Sister Theodora’….
I absolutely loved this debut novel by Bruce Berger, coupling it into a story around a part of the second world war in Greece, not often associated with the holocaust. Read the description above then purchase the book. Highly recommended. I award this historical novel 5 stars.
An electronic copy of this book was provided for review by the publishers Black Rose Writing via LibraryThing.… (more)