The Absent Moon

'A beautiful work that is in turn haunting, touching and redemptive' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE
‘A profoundly emotional book, and a brave one’ THE NEW YORKER
'Generous in spirit, devoid of self-pity, and an authentic literary achievement' ANDREW SOLOMON

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When Luiz Schwarcz was a child, he was told little about his grandfather Láios, a Hungarian Jew. Only later would he learn that Láios had ordered his son, Luiz’s father, to leap from a train taking them to a Nazi death camp, while Láios himself was carried on to his death.

What Luiz did know was that his father’s melancholia haunted the house he grew up in. As many children of trauma do, Luiz assumed responsibility for his parents’ happiness, and for a time blossomed into the family prodigy. But then, at a high point of outward success, he was brought low by a devastating mental breakdown.

This astonishing memoir interrogates a personal story of mental health through a family history of murder, dispossession, silence and the long echo of the Holocaust across generations – animated by the love and compassion of a master storyteller.

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'Brave, honest, devastating, and hopeful ... Schwarcz is a masterful storyteller’ ARIANA NEUMANN
'A lyrical and intimate portrait of the author’s lifelong, harrowing battle with depression' ABRAHAM VERGHESE