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
There are lots of
things I notice this Christmas that I’ve never noticed before. When my mother
takes me shopping, for instance, which is only between the hours of three and
five, there are certain village stores she will go into and certain stores she
won’t. And the stores she will not enter are usually the smarter ones, the fish
shop and the cooperative, for instance, which are near the best inns like
Franzi Wimmer’s and have glossy por-traits of the Führer prominently on show
inside, while the shops she does enter are the cheaper ones, even the dirtier
ones, like the baker whose bread is often stale and the dairy where the milk is
often sour. They have pictures of the Führer on their walls too, of course, but
smaller ones and not so often dusted. Some of them even have little specks of
fly-shit on his face.
I’m puzzled by my
mother’s shopping choices. I take it that as we are from Berlin, we must be a
cut above the rest, so we should be going to the best shops, not the worst. And
why do we go only in the late afternoon? I know that other people like
Jägerlein go at any time of the day. My mother doesn’t explain these anomalies,
and I sense I’m not supposed to know the real reason, although I’m still
convinced it has to do with our being proper Germans, while the villagers are
not. Nobody tells me where I’ve gone wrong. Nobody explains that Gabi is a
vicious and degenerate Jewess, that the best shops won’t serve her, that in any
case she’s allowed to shop only between the hours of three and five so that
decent Aryans shoppers can arrange to avoid the disgusting sight of her
altogether.
My parents have always
been bickering and crying (I think that’s normal—what else do I know?), but
they never openly mention this source of their troubles. Imagine, I can’t
recall ever being called a half-Jew yet, let alone a Yid, and perhaps I never
have been. I don’t even know what a Yid or half-Jew is. Sara does, of course;
she knows all right. And so do the others. But not me. Why should I? I’m never
allowed out to play with the village children, so they aren’t going to tell me.
And neither Jä-gerlein nor my mother is going to either. As for my brother and
sisters—they’re
certainly not going to tell me what it’s like to be called a half-Jew or a
dirty Yid. Like rape victims, they never tell because they feel they’re guilty.
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