THE PASSENGER

With penetrating urgency and an innate feel for the author's tragicomic yet hyperrealistic interior dialogue, narrator Neil Hellegers gives heartrending voice to this rediscovered novel, written in 1938 in the wake of Kristallnacht. Otto Silbermann, who is desperate to avoid the Third Reich's roundup of German Jews, searches for a train to take him across the border to safety on the eve of WWII. The 23-year-old Boschwitz deftly captures the spinning emotions and confusion of a man, and an entire culture, that is forced to sell their businesses, lose their friends, and abandon their families to stay one step ahead of genocide. Hellegers's superb naturalistic reading accentuates the complicated feelings of trying to stay human in a world gone mad. Essential listening. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2021]