Review of Discovering Twins
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Lafe Bannister
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- Latest Review: Discovering Twins by Stella Claire ter Hart
Review of Discovering Twins
[Following is a volunteer review of "Discovering Twins" by Stella Claire ter Hart.]
Discovering Twins follows snippets of Stella Claire ter Hart’s own life and family history, ranging from peaceful 19th-century Holland, to Nazi occupation in the 1940s, to autobiographical segments in rural Canada up to the present day, and how they are all interwoven as she uncovers old secrets in her family tree following her mother's passing. It is a deliberate blending of memoir and historical fiction, with some past segments based on secondhand accounts of the author's family.
Ter Hart gives vibrant descriptions for the characters' everyday lives and the setting, past and present. The otherwise idyllic life depicted in the past segments is teeming with dramatic irony, as the audience knows of the tragedy that will inevitably befall the Netherlands. But there are moments of levity as well. As examples, ter Hart describes one childhood memory where, due to a language barrier, she accidentally greets her aunt with a very vulgar expression she picked up from her father, and a modern-day anecdote describes a relative on a long, isolated cruise as being one of the safest people in the world right as the Covid-19 pandemic hits.
The book is rather slow-paced at the start; the accounts of her family's pre-war life and her own childhood start out scattered and appear unconnected. But this seems deliberate, as the connections become clearer as the story goes on. The mundane nature of these chapters serves to help the dark twists hit harder as the story goes on. A significant part of the book's later stages is dedicated to short biographies of Holocaust victims in her family; the crux of the narrative has more or less come and gone by the time the reader reaches this point and can feel more like an appendix. Even so, this was not enough to lessen my enjoyment of the book, and given the book's subject matter, it is very thematically fitting and reinforces the long-term impacts on people caused by the genocide.
The book is well-edited. There are only a few minor errors, outside of verbatim correspondence, that do not detract from the flow of the writing.
I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in genealogy and/or the non-military side of World War II. Anyone with Dutch heritage may enjoy this as well, given the use of the language and detailed look at life in 19th and 20th century Amsterdam. A brief glimpse is given of how the execution chambers in Nazi concentration camps operated, so reader discretion is advised there. Serious profanity is almost nonexistent, apart from the childhood anecdote mentioned above.
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Discovering Twins
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Discovering Twins follows snippets of Stella Claire ter Hart’s own life and family history, ranging from peaceful 19th-century Holland, to Nazi occupation in the 1940s, to autobiographical segments in rural Canada up to the present day, and how they are all interwoven as she uncovers old secrets in her family tree following her mother's passing. It is a deliberate blending of memoir and historical fiction, with some past segments based on secondhand accounts of the author's family.
Ter Hart gives vibrant descriptions for the characters' everyday lives and the setting, past and present. The otherwise idyllic life depicted in the past segments is teeming with dramatic irony, as the audience knows of the tragedy that will inevitably befall the Netherlands. But there are moments of levity as well. As examples, ter Hart describes one childhood memory where, due to a language barrier, she accidentally greets her aunt with a very vulgar expression she picked up from her father, and a modern-day anecdote describes a relative on a long, isolated cruise as being one of the safest people in the world right as the Covid-19 pandemic hits.
The book is rather slow-paced at the start; the accounts of her family's pre-war life and her own childhood start out scattered and appear unconnected. But this seems deliberate, as the connections become clearer as the story goes on. The mundane nature of these chapters serves to help the dark twists hit harder as the story goes on. A significant part of the book's later stages is dedicated to short biographies of Holocaust victims in her family; the crux of the narrative has more or less come and gone by the time the reader reaches this point and can feel more like an appendix. Even so, this was not enough to lessen my enjoyment of the book, and given the book's subject matter, it is very thematically fitting and reinforces the long-term impacts on people caused by the genocide.
The book is well-edited. There are only a few minor errors, outside of verbatim correspondence, that do not detract from the flow of the writing.
I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars. I strongly recommend it to anyone with an interest in genealogy and/or the non-military side of World War II. Anyone with Dutch heritage may enjoy this as well, given the use of the language and detailed look at life in 19th and 20th century Amsterdam. A brief glimpse is given of how the execution chambers in Nazi concentration camps operated, so reader discretion is advised there. Serious profanity is almost nonexistent, apart from the childhood anecdote mentioned above.
******
Discovering Twins
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: Discovering Twins by Stella Claire ter Hart
