When Julia Rosenthal returns to the suburban estate of her childhood, the unspoken tensions that permeated her seemingly conventional family life come flooding back. Trying to make sense of the secrets and half truths, she is forced to question how she has raised her own daughter -- with an openness and honesty that Susanna has just rejected in a very public betrayal of trust. Meanwhile her brother, Max, is happy to forge an alternative path through life, leaving the past undisturbed. But in a different place and time, another woman struggles to tell the story of her early years in wartime Germany, gradually revealing the secrets she has carried through the century, until past and present collide with unexpected and haunting results. In her devastating and beautifully understated second novel, Sue Eckstein takes the reader on a skilfully plotted journey where our growing awareness of Julia and Max's true heritage is in stark contrast to Julia's own interpretation of the past. Interweaving universal themes -- the nature of identity, the meaning of family, the emotional legacy of the past -- Interpreters magnificently unravels the impact of a war that resonates across four generations.
About the Author
Sue Eckstein worked for VSO for many years in London, Bhutan and the Gambia. Now a lecturer at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, she is also working on a PhD in creative writing at the University of Sussex. Her plays include The Tuesday Group, first performed in London in 2003, as well as Kaffir Lilies ('Really wonderful - a first rate production' Nell Dunn), Laura and Old School Ties ('Sparky and intriguing, written and performed with a real edge' Guardian) all for BBC Radio 4. Her first novel The Cloths of Heaven was published to great acclaim in 2009, and serialised on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour in 2010.