LIBRARY FOR THE WAR-WOUNDED

An impressive library represents all that’s good in life to one Austrian World War II survivor who struggles with the aftermath of the war and the horrific injuries he sustained while fighting on the Eastern Front.

Austrian writer Helfer explores the life of her father, Josef, in this work of autofiction. The child of a single mother—a maid in the household of his biological father—Josef is a bright child who grows up in poverty and, initially, without educational advantages. A local builder allows him access to his own home library, and Josef’s lifelong love affair with books and libraries begins. Upon his return from the war, Josef eventually secures a position as the manager of an Alpine convalescent home for those disabled in battle. Central to his attachment to the facility is his love of its comprehensive library, which leads to seemingly impetuous decisions about its future (as well as his own). Helfer’s unvarnished recitation of the circumstances her family endures in the wake of her father’s acts of desperation provides a clear portrait of the unrelenting, continuing legacy of damage suffered by those permanently maimed by war. Helfer addresses the reader directly at several points, and the process of researching and writing her account of Josef’s experiences is a visible part and parcel of the work. (Her stepmother, for example, wishes that Helfer would wait until after her death to write the account.) Deciphering the forces that informed her father’s decisions, as well as his various disabilities, leads Helfer to examine their generalized effects on her family as well in this sobering account.

Helfer’s unrelieved portrait of a suffering soul wastes nothing on superfluous embellishment.