The Absent Moon

Reviews / Votes

Fascinating, elegiac, heartbreaking and inspiring, this book is both a chronicle of the killing of the Holocaust, a memoir of unbearable suffering witnessed and felt for decades after; and an analysis of psychological trauma and memory - a beautiful work that is in turn haunting, touching and redemptive -- Simon Sebag Montefiore Brave, honest, devastating, and hopeful - a beautiful exploration of a man trying to understand his father, of how Holocaust trauma is passed down the generations and how we are all shaped by words and silences. Schwarcz is a masterful storyteller -- Ariana Neumann, author of WHEN TIME STOPPED This tender and lovely memoir of a child growing up in Brazil in a household whose characters were scarred by the Holocaust is unlike anything I can think of. It is also a lyrical and intimate portrait of the author's lifelong, harrowing battle with depression -- Abraham Verghese, author of CUTTING FOR STONE In this intimate and profound description of a life often marked by depression, Luiz Schwarcz touches on the insidious power of intergenerational trauma; on the terrible challenges of functioning despite a crippling disease; and on the burden of carrying a disability in relative silence. His is ultimately a book about identity, about how the author has managed, both despite and because of his depression, to inhabit a good marriage, an excellent career, a lovely family, and, perhaps most crucially, a coherent sense of self. It is generous in spirit, devoid of self-pity, and an authentic literary achievement -- Andrew Solomon A profoundly emotional book, and a brave one * The New Yorker * In The Absent Moon, Luiz Schwarcz, a legendary Brazilian publisher and global tastemaker, shares little of the glamorous life, focusing instead on the lifelong pain of clinical depression * New York Times *