“And After the Fire”, by Lauren Belfer

 

464 pages, Harper, ISBN-13: 978-0062428516

Berlin, Prussia, 1783. Amid the city’s glittering salons aristocrats and commoners, Christians and Jews, mingle freely despite simmering anti-Semitism; here Sara Itzig Levy, a renowned musician, conceals the manuscript of an anti-Jewish cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, an unsettling gift to her from Bach’s son, her teacher, a work with a disturbing message that will haunt Sara and her family for generations to come. Berlin, Germany, 1945. At the end of World War II, American soldier Henry Sachs takes this same music manuscript from a seemingly deserted mansion. New York, America, 2010. Henry’s niece, Susanna Kessler, struggles to rebuild her life after a devastating act of violence on the streets of New York City; when Henry dies soon after, she uncovers the long-hidden music manuscript and becomes determined to discover what it is and to return it to its rightful owner, a journey that will challenge her preconceptions about herself and her family’s history while granting her an opportunity to finally make peace with the past…

When I assigned this book for the Fraser Public Library’s “Books on Tap” book club it put me in mind of Cloud Cuckoo Land (reviewed on September 7^th, 2023), what with its multigenerational tale of a work of artistry that transcended the ages and affected all who handled it in ways unimaginable to them. Whenever an author mixes real-life characters with invented ones, it can become problematic, as, along the way, they seem to forget that they did not invent them but that they actually existed and spoke and behaved in ways that do not conform to your story. But I didn’t get that with Belfer; her interpretations of historical figures, from Wilhelm Friedemann Bach to Sara Itzig Levy to all the others, acted – I think – the way in which the historical, real-life people would have in the situations Belfer put them in. More than just her interpretations, they were people whose motivations and purposes were spelled out, not by the author, but by the flesh-and-bone personas they really were; all Belfer had to do was plug them into her tale to make them live again.

But I do have some…issues with the writing. At times it has the feel of a juvenile romance, especially when Susanna Kessler (a stand-in for Lauren Belfer?) is being courted by two men at once; I mean, good for her and all, but the whole thing felt rather forced. Or when one character states that they prefer the Simone Dinnerstein’s interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” to Glenn Gould’s feels rather like Belfer is showing off her erudition. Or again, when she brings up Beethoven’s Cello Sonatas it is strange that she references the Cello Sonata No. 3 in A major (Op. 69) with Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 4 in C major (Op. 102) when No. 3 stands alone, both musically and temporally, suggests the author may not know as much about music as she thinks she does. And don’t get me started on the out-of-left-field pro-abortion rant, or the Lutheran professor spontaneously turning atheist or her pointless dig at the “supposed” American melting pot…ah, enough; there’s enough divisiveness in  the world, I should have been spared it in an escapist novel.

And After the Fire was, then, clearly written and always interesting, although I can’t shake the sensation that it fell a little short in some way. The various plot strands are all neatly tied up without too much drama or passion and the various conflicts get resolved or die down until we settle down to a very peaceful ending. A good book overall, if not a great one.