Anne Raeff

When I was younger, I wished I had been born in a concentration camp like my mother, instead of in boring Englewood Hospital. I used to imagine all the prisoners crying mutely with joy while my grandmother lay swallowing her screams so the guards wouldnt hear. So writes Deborah Gelb, the teenage daughter of the title character, in her opening chapter. Deborahs voice is complemented by that of Ruth Mondschein Claras mother, who recounts her life story to Tommy, a patient at the AIDS hospice where she volunteers. In alternating chapters, Deborah and Mrs Mondschein depict the lives of three generations of women as both daughter and mother attempt to make sense of Claras 'melancholia' and the historical events that profoundly affected them all. While the novel is set in mid-1990s New York and suburban New Jersey, Deborah and Mrs Mondscheins stories move through much of the twentieth century, from Vienna and Czechoslovakia, to Spain and Morocco. At the heart of this ambitious novel is the question of why some people are strengthened by adversity even something as horrific as genocide and others are defeated by it. Clara Mondscheins Melancholia examines with bravado and sensitivity how the lingering effects of one of historys darkest hours including guilt, anger, loyalty and hope live on in a single family.