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Crawl Space

by Edie Meidav

Crawl Space Cover

ISBN13: 9780312425753
ISBN10: 0312425759
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
An Electric Review Best Book of the Year
A ReadySteadyBook Best Book of the Year
 
It's 1999 and Emile Poulquet awaits sentencing in a Paris court for deporting thousands to almost certain death during World War II. But, haunted by ghosts from his former life, and determined to confront his dark legacy, he escapes and heads toward his beloved Finier, a rural town in the south of France where he once served as prefect. His return will have explosive consequences.
 
By turns reflective and slyly humorous, Crawl Space poignantly describes one man's tragic attempt to come to terms with the past.

Synopsis:

By turns epic and intimate, reflective and slyly humorous, Meidav's new novel limns the gray zone between past and future, and it poignantly describes one man's tragic attempt to come to terms with the past.
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About the Author

Edie Meidav is the author of The Far Field. She lives in California, where she teaches at the New College of California.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
StephenWright, November 27, 2007 (view all comments by StephenWright)
From 1940-1945, Emile Poulquet served as the Prefecture of Finier in which he exiled thousands to die. After the War, he had cosmetic surgery to disguise himself by eliminating the facial hump his father thought personified evil, but would identify him to authorities on their Nazi sympathizer witch-hunt. In 1999, the authorities catch eight-four years old Emile, who stands trial for his role in genocide over five decades earlier. However, he remains spry and sharp, and escapes.

Emile takes the train south to Finier. In the train's lavatory he writes his last will to give to his Arianne, a resistance hero's widow, for he expects that upon returning for the first time since he spent a month there in 1960, this will end his odyssey. In Finier, Emile is sidetracked by the town's wartime reunion that touches his withered soul as he knows he can never participate though he obsesses with the need to join even at the cost of his wasted life.

CRAWL SPACE is a deep character study of an octogenarian who knows that even death will not eliminate the guilt that haunts him. His need to "go home" grips readers, but Emile knows that he can never truly go home. Interestingly he feels more remorse over one incident than over sending thousands to their certain death as the latter is more a statistical consequence of his job while the former was caused by his emotions. Edie Meidav does the impossible turning a Nazi butcher into a sympathetic protagonist though the audience will believe he deserves an abode in hell; Emile would affirm that a life with no place to call home is hell.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780312425753
Author:
Meidav, Edie
Publisher:
Picador USA
Subject:
Literary
Copyright:
2006
Publication Date:
June 2006
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
445
Dimensions:
8.16x6.32x.78 in. .88 lbs.
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