The Scrapbook
Published on 19. June 2025
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-78733-542-4 (ISBN)
Description
A debut novel about a life-changing romance in the long shadow of European history, inspired by the author's real discovery.
'A singular portrait of intoxicating young love' AUBE REY LESCURE
'You wouldn't be able to put it down' SAMANTHA ROSE HILL
For years after I tried to tell myself that what happened between us was hardly worth remembering.
Harvard, 1996. Anna is about to graduate when she meets Christoph, a German student visiting campus. They only spend a week together - discussing art, ideas and history - but it is long enough for Anna to fall desperately in love. Anna begins to visit Christoph in Germany. As she tries to understand the young, elegant man who fascinates her, he reveals his country to her.
Germany is still reckoning with the Holocaust and its pretty new squares and grand facades belie its recent history and the war's destruction. Christoph condemns his country's actions but remains vague about the part his own grandparents played. Anna's grandfather, meanwhile, was an American GI who took photos of the end of the war, photos that capture its horror, preserved in a scrapbook only Anna has seen.
Anna wants to believe in Christoph and the future he promises her but as their relationship becomes increasingly unsettling, she must face up to everything she has been unwilling to see, and everything Christoph has chosen to ignore.
'An elegant, unsettling novel about the burden of history and the illusions of love' Sana Krasikov, author of The Patriots
'Heather Clark writes with a rare empathy' Times Literary Supplement
'A singular portrait of intoxicating young love' AUBE REY LESCURE
'You wouldn't be able to put it down' SAMANTHA ROSE HILL
For years after I tried to tell myself that what happened between us was hardly worth remembering.
Harvard, 1996. Anna is about to graduate when she meets Christoph, a German student visiting campus. They only spend a week together - discussing art, ideas and history - but it is long enough for Anna to fall desperately in love. Anna begins to visit Christoph in Germany. As she tries to understand the young, elegant man who fascinates her, he reveals his country to her.
Germany is still reckoning with the Holocaust and its pretty new squares and grand facades belie its recent history and the war's destruction. Christoph condemns his country's actions but remains vague about the part his own grandparents played. Anna's grandfather, meanwhile, was an American GI who took photos of the end of the war, photos that capture its horror, preserved in a scrapbook only Anna has seen.
Anna wants to believe in Christoph and the future he promises her but as their relationship becomes increasingly unsettling, she must face up to everything she has been unwilling to see, and everything Christoph has chosen to ignore.
'An elegant, unsettling novel about the burden of history and the illusions of love' Sana Krasikov, author of The Patriots
'Heather Clark writes with a rare empathy' Times Literary Supplement
Reviews / Votes
An ambitious, stirring debut * People * Clark, in prose at the same time richly philosophical and light of touch, accomplishes a double feat. She has written both an aching love story and an incisive examination of the politics of memory * Literary Review * An incredibly smart novel, with an intricate and perfectly paced depiction of a delicate and intense relationship. It's as if a Sally Rooney novel merged with Richard Linklater's film, Before Sunrise * Booklist * Clark uses her first novel to explore a highly literary and highly troubled relationship... At once a rich historical novel and a philosophical study of how much influence past generations have on our affections * Los Angeles Times * Phenomenal... Worthy of reading and rereading * Bookpage * Offer[s] a flying tour of literary representations of the Holocaust and its legacy-a lightly annotated reading list that includes fiction writers such as Tadeusz Borowski and W. G. Sebald-as well as a meditation on the cost of political crimes to a nation's trustworthiness and honor, even generations later * New York Times * It's a wonderful novel; highly literary, yet page turning... It's the sort of book you press on everyone you know, and spend hours discussing, once they've read it too * Irish Examiner * A swiftly-moving, molecularly perceptive, singular portrait of intoxicating young love. Clark captures the psychological nuances and emotional currents of two youthful intellects wrestling with the weight of history and questions of legacy, moral responsibility, and the blinders and dissonance of a complicated romance -- Aube Rey Lescure, author of River East, River West An elegant, unsettling novel about the burden of history and the illusions of love. With a biographer's eye for detail and a novelist's grasp of human frailty, The Scrapbook traces the fault lines between past and present, between nations and individuals, revealing how history lingers-not in grand narratives, but in intimate entanglements -- Sana Krasikov, author of The Patriots Through an exquisitely observed love affair, Clark explores how the Nazis' lingering legacy can still haunt the lives of those born long after the war. A stunningly good novel. -- Julia Boyd, author of A Village in the Third Reich Puts the ferocity and obsession of young love into play with huge historical forces -- Leslie Jamison Heather Clark's The Scrapbook is a masterpiece. This beautifully crafted, quietly devastating love story reminds us of the epic impact of the Second World War across continents and through generations, its scars perhaps most poignantly felt in the intimate interactions between two solitary people -- Rebecca Donner, author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days Ingeborg Bachmann once asked, "When will the war be over?" Heather Clark's debut novel, The Scrapbook, offers an answer to this timeless question in a work of searing tenderness. An intimate portrait of youthful romance, haunted by the shadow of the second world war, Clark meticulously captures the melancholy inheritance of a generation trying to find their place amidst the rubble of the past. The initiations of first love, the scars it leaves behind, The Scrapbook reminds us that we're never as far from history as we'd like to imagine, and it reminds us just how much we must give up in order to move on. Beautifully written, brilliantly researched. A stunning quiet work you won't be able to put down -- Samantha Rose Hill, author of Hannah Arendt Historical fiction strikes a complicated balance, between a need to recreate with some accuracy events in the past while at the same time communicating the relevance of those facts to the present. Heather Clark situates a contemporary love story in the shadow of - and with capacious insight into - German history both during and immediately after the Second World War. Clark navigates difficult conceptual ground with remarkable ease, making the complex legacy of the war appreciable to readers in the present -- Matthew Longo A revelation * Publishers Weekly (starred review) * Clark has achieved an impressive feat in this beautiful and powerful novel examining the nature of intergenerational trauma, inherited guilt and all consuming love * Jewish Chronicle * In her elegant, calmly unsettled debut novel, Heather Clark illustrated how the cold shadow of German history bleeds constantly into the present, even in the most intimate spheres... a novel of beautiful surfaces and uneasy depths * Times Literary Supplement * Clark grapples with history, latching onto inspiration from her grandfather's World War II scrapbook. This intense story explores first love between American and German university students who must uncover and reconcile the past to forge a future * Boston Globe * Immersive... Clark is interrogating whether past misdeeds implicate future generations-and whether they should * Washington Post * Finely wrought... The Scrapbook is a fascinating tangle of yearning, history, and legacy * Shelf Awareness *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 219 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
364 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78733-542-4 (9781787335424)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2025
Vintage Digital
€12.99
Available for download
Person
Heather Clark is the author of four works of non-fiction, including Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath (published by Jonathan Cape), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times Book Prize in Biography, and was the winner of the Slightly Foxed Prize and the Truman Capote Prize (awarded by the Iowa Writers' Workshop). It was a Book of the Year in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Times and New York Times. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Time, Lit Hub, and TLS. She has recently received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Public Library's Cullman Centre. The Scrapbook is her debut novel.