Published By: One More Chapter
Pages: 384
Released On: 20/07/2023
I am the oldest person ever to have lived in this world. I am the one who lived through their monster camps and brought the ones left of my family to London to make more family. I am the one to laugh at those angry, evil people and tell them, you see, I made it through. We made it through. This is enough. It is my world’s record.
Family matriarch and Holocaust survivor Nora Wojnaswki is about to become the oldest person in the world, ever, and her family are determined to celebrate in style.
But Nora isn’t your average centenarian and she has other ideas. When she disappears with her carer Arifa on a trip down memory lane in the East End of London, a wartime secret, buried deep for over 70 years, will finally be revealed.
*****
Cate very kindly sent me a copy of her book when I was going through a very difficult mental health battle and I thank her very much for it.
The majority of the book is set in the 18 days leading up to the day when Nora officially becomes the oldest person in the world, and it is amazing what can happen in a little over two weeks.
I absolutely adored Nora right from the off, she is really fantastic. She is like my literary grandma and, even though she did make me miss my own grandmothers, I fell in love with her instantly.
There are many other characters in this book, but there are a couple of standouts. Obviously Nora herself, as mentioned above. Her carer Arifa was a bit unassuming to begin with, she didn’t hold my attention early on as I assumed she would just be another side character, but she becomes irreplicable for Nora and she quickly became one of my favourites. The main narrator of Deb – Nora’s Great Granddaughter; she took some time. I felt her heart was in the right place, she wanted to celebrate Nora’s life, but at times I felt she was a bit selfish. But only at times. Mostly I feel she was an interesting narrator to have. And I felt for her. She tries her best but she is not always appreciated, especially by her parents, Sylvia and Michael. Talking of which, I didn’t like Sylvia specifically. Not because she’s badly written, no no, she’s written as this pernickety, pedantic, annoying woman and she just grated on me so much that I was fully on Deb’s side. But overall, each character is well written, with depth, passion and insight, and they all exist around this matriarch and help to move her story along.
What I really liked was the multigenerational elements. Obviously, with the story focussing on a 122+ year old lady, there is bound to be different ages, and it was lovely to see the differences in attitudes and behaviours across the years.
I found it interesting that Nora was loosely inspired by Cate’s own grandma, which adds heart to the characterisation.
There is a natural ease to this book. Everything reads so fluidly and it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s so moving. I don’t mean that in a sad, miserable, emotional way, as such. Although there are sadder elements. But everything is so heartfelt that I was moved by the happiness, by the hope and love, and by their relationships.
It is a trip down memory lane and what a beautiful journey it is. I won’t spoil it by telling you everywhere they went, but there are a lot of places in London that hold a memory for Nora, and it was equally as wonderful to reminisce and a bit upsetting for the reader to think of this old woman, who is at the very top of the family tree, but who has lost everything she recognises. Everyone wants to live forever, but when you start to lose people and places, it becomes a struggle.
Cate has had to balance a lot in this book: history, war, sadness, regret, ageing, friends, family, love, loss, grief, humour, fun – there’s a lot thrown into 384 pages, but overall I think she’s found the right balance and everything reads so well. Nothing seems like too much or too little. You don’t feel overwhelemed or shortchanged. It’s a very lovely book to read.
I don’t know much about Jewish customs and behaviour, and so it was a delight to pick some out from this story.
For a debut book, this is spellbinding. I may have been given a digital copy, but you can be sure that I’ll be buying copies for Christmas presents. It’s just beautiful.
It is a novel about “survivors of war and injustice and their lives as ordinary people with an extraordinary past”. This had the potential to be quite morose. But it is the opposite. Obviously being as old as she is, Nora has seen a lot of war, but it’s all in the past for her, whereas for her Syrian carer Arifa, it is much more recent, and I felt the gentle comparisons were fantastic and sensitively written. It isn’t a 100% truthful depiction of war, more how it can affect people directly when it happens, and also stay with them for the rest of their life. And the majority of people involved in war, on either side, are ordinary people just caught up in a terrible extraordinary time.
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