The passersby

As a teenage Jewish girl struggles with anorexia, her decisions about whether or not to live affect those close to her and are influenced by survivors of the Holocaust.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 8 Up-No, a 15-year-old Jewish girl living in post-World War II France, suffers from anorexia. She relates her experiences in a mental institution and at a school where students aim to achieve the ``ideal.'' Filled with allegory and symbolism, the story takes a poignant look at emotional illness and at the guilt of holocaust survivors, and movingly describes how the young woman learns to cope with her illness. No is the only developed character; her friends and family members-with names like God does a bad job and I speak alone-represent particular ideas, which makes them appear one-dimensional and stereotypical. Readers will be touched, however, by I will create myself's (a 19-year-old) accounts of his trials at Auschwitz. Some readers will find the shifts from third-person to first-person narrative confusing, and those used to direct, orderly prose will find the separations between paragraphs and the gaps in time-and in the story-distracting. An adequate glossary is included, but words are listed in order of appearance instead of alphabetically.-Margaret B. Rafferty, Appalachian Regional Library, West Jefferson, NC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publisher's Weekly Review

Atlan begins her elliptical and haunting novel simply and shockingly: ``In a rich house, in Marseilles, at the end of a war, a young girl is starving herself to death. She is fourteen years old, or fifteen. Her name is No ,--her first name. But I'll get out of it is her last name.'' Neither the blandishments of her father, God does a bad job, I'll take over , nor the attentions of psychiatrists My money above all and I say nothing and I take can help No overcome her spiritual and existential crises; she must discover for herself that her pain is its own redemption. A French Jew who spent her childhood hiding from the Nazis, Atlan frames No 's story as a series of ``praises'' (Owens's preface cites the author's interest in the Kabbala and other expressions of Jewish mysticism). She pares down her narrative to include only the essential, refusing to explain or formally introduce her subjects and forcing her audience to grapple with the same questions and uncertainties that riddle No. Her novel is ambitious and challenging, but its power and elegance will fortify the reader. Ages 12-up. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Horn Book Review

Set in France shortly after World War II, the malaise that affected Europe is seen through the eyes of an anorexic adolescent searching for a reason to live. Her parents -- named 'I'm dying' and 'God does a bad job' -- and the doctors are stymied; in the end, she must cure herself. The allegorical style will appeal to sophisticated readers. From HORN BOOK 1993, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Review

From a French poet and playwright who was hidden from the Nazis during WW II, an autobiographical novel about an anorexic Jewish teenager and her wealthy family in the postwar years. Institutionalized in a Swiss sanitorium, the girl is eventually rehabilitated by study, love, and the example of an adopted brother who lost his family in the camps yet is able ``to respond to Auschwitz with the decision to be happy.'' This is a spare, poetic, formally challenging work--with interleaved, fragmentary scenes from several decades and characters designated by identifying phrases rather than names (the protagonist is called ``No''; her adopted brother is ``I will create myself''), an intriguing and effective device that nonetheless becomes cumbersome as the cast grows. A valiant attempt to transmute pain into art, the book is especially interesting for its experimentation and insights into anorexia. Some will find it ultimately unsatisfying because the Holocaust is such an overwhelming event that, even when dealt with tangentially as it is here, it makes No's sufferings, life- threatening though they are, seem trivial by comparison. The greater redemptive mystery is the life of I will create myself; and yet the bystander's agonizing ``Starvation, of the soul, of the spirit, of the heart, and finally, of the flesh itself'' is a real part of the larger tragedy. Translator's glossary of French terms and unfamiliar names. (Fiction. 14+)

Booklist Review

Gr. 9-12. This haunting French prose poem by a Holocaust survivor is an allegory about a teenager's search for meaning. Confronting the worst that people can be, she tries to find reason to go on--like someone dangling on the edge of a precipice. The story begins "In a rich house, in Marseilles, at the end of the war, a young girl is starving herself to death." The allegorical personal names are both momentous and funny: the anorexic teenager is No; her father is God does a bad job, I'll take over; her doctor is Leave it to me. It's her adopted brother, I will create myself, a 19-year-old Auschwitz survivor, who tells her his almost unbearable story of a Nazi death march, an account of savagery and friendship and the need to live and tell the story. Although less than a page long, the episode is told with realistic detail that has the stark intensity of myth; it would be a compelling starting point for curriculum projects on the Holocaust and for discussions about values. Other parts of the book, especially those related to her mystical quest, are sometimes confusing, and many teens may not have the patience to read through all of this slim story. But the translation is spare and lyrical, and the subject matter compels attention. No finds an ideal, purpose, friends; what saves her is the knowledge of "those individuals who helped each other to be better able to help the others." ~--Hazel Rochman

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