Joop: A Novel of Anne Frank (A Hatred for Tulips): Summary and book reviews of Joop: A Novel of Anne Frank (A Hatred for Tulips) by Richard Lourie, plus links to an excerpt from Joop: A Novel of Anne Frank (A Hatred for Tulips) and a biography of Richard Lourie.
Joop: A Novel of Anne Frank (A Hatred for Tulips)
by Richard Lourie
Hardcover: Aug 2007,
192 pages.
Paperback: Oct 2008,
192 pages.
“People who don’t have secrets imagine them as dark and hidden. It’s just the opposite. Secrets are bright. They light you up. Like the bare lightbulb left on in a cell day and night, they give you no rest.”
So thinks Joop, the narrator of this brief and bitter tale, whose secret is like no other. He has kept that secret for more than sixty years, but now his brother---whom he has not seen since the end of the war---has suddenly shown up at his door.
Having grown up in North America with only the vaguest memories of World War II, Joop’s brother has returned to Amsterdam to find out what his childhood in Holland had been like. But what he discovers is much more than he bargained for---he is startled and dismayed to learn of his own role in the betrayal of Anne Frank.
Transporting readers through the agonizing Nazi takeover of World War II, Joop recounts his role as a boy desiring to feed his starving family. He figures out a way to provide for them, but in doing so, he sets in motion a chain of events that will horrify the entire world.
Just as he did in the internationally acclaimed The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin, here Richard Lourie takes us into not only a person’s mind, a time, and a place, but into the treacherous currents of history that sweep lives away. This gripping fictionalized account of the man who betrayed Anne Frank will not soon be forgotten.
Note: Published in hardcover in the USA as A Hatred For Tulips, but renamed Joop: A Novel of Anne Frank in paperback.
The New York Times - Elena Lappin
...[A]ll the plausibility and cool detachment of a well-researched and carefully edited documentary. It is skillfully done, with minimal, well-placed strokes, written in blunt yet elegant prose.
Kirkus Reviews
A haunting novel that doesn't fully resolve the tensions it dramatizes.
Publishers Weekly
Lourie's rendering of Anne Frank's fictional betrayer as a callous, misguided youth is stark and deftly written.
Booklist - Hazel Rochman
[A]fast, riveting novel...far better than the usual Anne Frank spin-offs, this story is driven by the details of daily life among desperate, ordinary people under the Nazi occupation.
Library Journal - Marika Zemke
Though slim, this novel speaks volumes and is destined to be a best seller and a book club favorite. Highly recommended
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Andrew A Hatred for Tulips: Thumbs Up! If you are interested in WW2 and you enjoy interesting books this is the one for you. From the get go the book grabs you and takes you on a journey before, during, and after WW2. There isn't one boring moment in this book. I would highly suggest... Read More
We were going out stealing horses. That was what he said, standing at the door to the cabin where I was spending the summer with my father. I was fifteen. It was 1948 and one of the first days of July.
The first two stories of a masterwork once thought lost, written by a pre-WWII bestselling author who was deported to Auschwitz and died before her work could be completed.
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