PositiveMomentOne explanation for Aftermath’s popularity at home stares an American reader in the face. The book contains relatively few pages about Jews—not to mention gays, Roma, left-wingers, White Rose survivors or anti-Hitler exiles (with the exception, in the latter case, of some passages about the courageous Thomas Mann.) In short, the war’s much-written-about innocent victims—those forced to suffer before the aftermath—are largely absent. From the perspective of German readers, it’s a book almost entirely about \'us.\' Perhaps they felt, given the endless shelves of tomes on the Holocaust, that it was about time ... In fairness to Jähner, when he does write about Jews and other innocent victims, he does so with the utmost respect and sympathy ... Jähner never flatters his people—he tries to understand them ... it’s the resemblances, the universal elements of war and its upshot, that make Aftermath powerfully instructive about the enduring psychological impact of national conflicts in which good and evil clash ... Jähner convincingly shows that Germany in its postwar decade—with help from its conquerors—set aside justice to achieve democracy and reconciliation. One hopes, in the aftermath of Russia’s crimes against Ukraine, that history won’t repeat itself, and that justice and democracy will advance together.
Jenny Diski
PositiveMomentThe essays prove it’s possible for a writerly voice to be both utterly sui generis and yet recognizably Jewish. Secular Jewish, that is. By turns ironic, sarcastic, unsentimental, argumentative, solipsistic, ingenious, fearless and narcissistic, Diski could also, when engaged with the tradition, become appropriately somber. Her shorter Jewish-themed pieces connect with her novels to reveal a writer irreverent toward Jewish theology, yet respectful of Jewish suffering ... coruscating, inimitable essays, with the book reviews tucked somewhere inside. They soar on many unexpected topics: Howard Hughes, Sonia Orwell, spiders, Nietzsche and his sister ... her sardonic tone, the blunt voice of the Jewish non-believer, held fast even as she grappled with her own death.
Gene Roberts, Hank Klibanoff
RaveThe Philadelphia InquirerThe book, which teems with portraits of everyday journalistic pressures, is the fair-minded chronicle of a generation of Southern journalists and editors...At the same time, Roberts and Klibanoff give ample coverage to the brave black journalists who spurred their white colleagues to better performance ... The authors\' early explanation that \'a small band of liberal white Southern editors would become their region\'s conscience,\' is thoroughly and movingly documented.
