WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES captures the importance of storytelling and the unending fight to keep the truth alive. And most importantly, it brings a long unvoiced story to life, while honoring the Jews of Warsaw who bravely shared their stories over eighty years ago. In late 1940, Adam Paskow is locked by the Nazis into the Warsaw Ghetto along with thousands of fellow Jews. Widowed before the war began, Adam remains friendly with his Christian father-in-law, Henryk, who nonetheless dupes Adam into accepting crowded quarters promised to two families. Adam teaches English to a motley group of students and is invited by the group Oneg Shabbat to contribute to an archive of daily life and profiles of residents, introducing readers to his nine flatmates. As circumstances deteriorate, Adam witnesses haunting instances of downtrodden people both remaining optimistic and succumbing to despair. Rumors of lucky people bartering for Gentile papers bolster hope of escape in an increasingly desperate milieu. Adam must decide if he has the fortitude to pursue his own salvation or abandon those he cares about.
"This book is a masterpiece: profound, gripping, urgent, and beautiful. In its clear-eyed and devastating portrait of the past, Grodstein invites us into the present; to bear witness to the lives that have come before us, while finding meaning and courage for our own." --Madeline Miller, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles
Lauren Grodstein is the author of five novels, including the New York Times bestseller A Friend of the Family and the Washington Post Book of the Year The Explanation for Everything. Her forthcoming novel We Must Not Think of Ourselves will be published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in November, 2023. Lauren’s work has been translated into French, Turkish, German, Hebrew, and other languages, and her essays and reviews have been widely published. She teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden and lives in New Jersey with her husband and children.
Seattle author Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of novels such as One Two Three, The Atlas of Love, Goodbye for Now, and the Reese's Book Club This Is How It Always Is. Her newest novel, Family Family will be out in January.
