The Absent Moon

Luiz Schwarcz; translated by Eric M. B. Becker

POWERFUL AND PERSONAL: The Absent Moon is a stunning and important memoir, a look at memory and trauma carried down through generations in a way that calls to mind Philippe Sands' pivotal East West Street (114,000 copies TCM), with the intimate storytelling of Decca Aitkenhead's Lost At Sea (over 8,000 copies TCM)

Fascinating, elegiac, heartbreaking and inspiring, this book is both a chronicle of the killing of the Holocaust, a memoir of unbearable suffering witnessed and felt for decades after; and an analysis of psychological trauma and memory - a beautiful work that is in turn haunting, touching and redemptive
Brave, honest, devastating, and hopeful - a beautiful exploration of a man trying to understand his father, of how Holocaust trauma is passed down the generations and how we are all shaped by words and silences. Schwarcz is a masterful storyteller
This tender and lovely memoir of a child growing up in Brazil in a household whose characters were scarred by the Holocaust is unlike anything I can think of. It is also a lyrical and intimate portrait of the author's lifelong, harrowing battle with depression
In this intimate and profound description of a life often marked by depression, Luiz Schwarcz touches on the insidious power of intergenerational trauma; on the terrible challenges of functioning despite a crippling disease; and on the burden of carrying a disability in relative silence. His is ultimately a book about identity, about how the author has managed, both despite and because of his depression, to inhabit a good marriage, an excellent career, a lovely family, and, perhaps most crucially, a coherent sense of self. It is generous in spirit, devoid of self-pity, and an authentic literary achievement
A profoundly emotional book, and a brave one
In The Absent Moon, Luiz Schwarcz, a legendary Brazilian publisher and global tastemaker, shares little of the glamorous life, focusing instead on the lifelong pain of clinical depression