They marry - but soon, like so many others, they are torn apart by the currents of war. Your husband.' During the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, falls in love with Josef. She looked at him again, as if giving weight and bone to a ghost. 'Do you remember me now?' he asked, trembling. Though the framing device of the decades-long separation can be cloying, this is a genuinely moving portrait.There on her forearm, next to a small brown birthmark, were six tattooed numbers. Richman's incremental descent into the horrors of the Holocaust lends enormous power to Lenka's experience and makes her reunion with Josef all the more poignant. Richman (The Last Van Gogh) once again finds inspiration in art, adding evocative details to a swiftly moving and emotionally charged plot. And then she's sent to, and survives, Auschwitz. She's sent to a work camp, where her artistic talents connect her to "an underground network of painters illustrating the atrocities" of the Jewish ghettos. For 61 years, each believes the other dead until they meet by chance at the wedding of their grandchildren, leading them to reflect on the past and the separate lives they've led: Josef ended up in New York, becoming a successful obstetrician because he was "tired of being haunted by death." Lenka wasn't so lucky. Lenka remains in Europe, and Josef flees to America. Three years later, with Nazis crossing the border, they rush to marry, but circumstances then force them apart. Josef and Lenka meet as students in Prague in 1936 and fall instantly in love.
Star-crossed lovers are separated during WWII in Richman's heart-wrenching fourth novel. Then, decades later and thousands of miles away, an unexpected encounter in New York leads to an inescapable glance of recognition, and the realization that providence has given Lenka and Josef one more chance.įrom the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the occupation to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit, and our capacity to remember. But in the Nazi ghetto of Terezín, Lenka survived, relying on her skills as an artist and the memories of a husband she would never see again. Now a successful obstetrician in America, Josef has never forgotten the wife he believes died in the war. Like so many others, they are torn apart by the currents of war. With the promise of a better future, they marry-only to have their dreams shattered by the imminent Nazi invasion.
A rapturous novel of star-crossed love in a time of war-from the international bestselling author of The Secret of Clouds.ĭuring the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, and Josef, who is studying medicine, fall in love.
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