The Man in the Box

In 1943 Austria, young Niki Lukasser and his best friend Sigi, a blind girl, learn some of life's lessons when they take responsibility for the care and feeding of Dr. Weiss, a Jew whom Niki's parents are hiding from the Germans.

With gentle and unflinching emotional honesty, this first novel by New York journalist Moran concerns a 13-year-old boy who must care for a Jew-"the man in the box"-his father hides from the Nazis. In the midst of neighbors and friends in his Austrian village who may or may not know his secret, young Niki Lukasser must learn to do the extraordinary while burdened with an ordinary, conflicted heart. When Dr. Robert Weiss unexpectedly appears on the Lukasser doorstep one day in 1943, the family is faced with a request that is difficult to refuse. Weiss saved the life of Niki, their only child, several years earlier and now is pleading that the favor be returned. After Niki's father briefly weighs "whether the debt he has incurred was heavy enough for the payment that now seemed to be required," he seals Weiss into a tiny hidden room he has built in the loft of his barn. During the ensuing two years, Weiss's physical and emotional survival become the responsibility of Niki and his first love, Sigi, a blind girl. Though a tale of Holocaust survival, this is also the story of many friendships: between a worldly doctor and the bewildered children who tend to him yet look to him for guidance; between a sensitive young man and a perceptive young woman yearning to discover themselves; and among the sometimes stoic, sometimes irrational villagers, who have known each other all their lives. Although he can be pretentiously philosophical at times, Moran is a sophisticated storyteller who subtly explores the way ordinary people, even children, are capable of both good and evil, betrayal and sacrifice. BOMC and QPB alternate selection.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

First-novelist Moran, who edits W magazine, has chosen an unconventional debut subject: a childhood encounter with the shadow of Nazism and the consequences of ethnic prejudice, set in Austria during WW II. In the village of Sankt Vero, shopkeeper Martin Lukasser is approached by a Jewish doctor, Robert Weiss, in flight from the Nazis and seeking refuge. Years earlier, Weiss had performed an emergency appendectomy on Lukasser's son Niki. In return, Martin now constructs a tiny concealed room, scarcely larger than a box, in his barn and hides the doctor in it for two years, until the war ends. Weiss's only ``visitors'' are the now adolescent Niki and the latter's best friend Sigi, a blind girl. The pair listen raptly as ``our Jew'' tries to pass the time by telling the story of his life (and, more reluctantly, of his loves). This is, therefore, a coming-of-age novel, short on plot and of interest mainly for the smoothness of Niki's present-tense narration and for Moran's characterizations. Dr. Weiss is, as the teenagers see him, opaque; Niki is believably sensitive and observant; and Sigi is especially vividly drawn--she isn't at all long-suffering or saintly, and there are streaks of irritability and cruelty in her that, oddly enough, endear her to us. Moran writes amusingly of adolescent sexual curiosity and confusion, presenting the Nazi menace as more inconvenience and annoyance than threat to the beleaguered villagers who must billet Wehrmacht soldiers in their homes and safeguard their daughter's virtue. Unfortunately, the story's impact is blunted by its reliance on several clich‚d characters, the most glaring of which are a taciturn father whose stoic demeanor masks an embarrassing secret, and the beautiful, lonely schoolteacher whom obtuse townspeople mistake for a seductress. The novel invites, absorbs, but does not fully convince the reader. A commendable first effort, then, but flawed by some flat secondary figures and a rather slow pace.(Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In a small village in Austria during World War II, Dr. Robert Weiss, a Jewish doctor, shows up unexpectedly at the house of the Lukassers (a "righteous gentile" family) beseeching refuge from the Nazis. He is well known to the family, having saved the life of their only son, Niki, years before by performing an emergency appendectomy. Lukasser knows the dangers of harboring a Jew; nevertheless, he builds a false room in his barn, not bigger than a box, where Weiss hides for more than two years. A warm relationship develops among the doctor; Niki, who brings him food; and Sigi, a blind girl, and the children endlessly discuss the situation. Eventually, the secret begins to take its toll on the family. The result is a test of courage under stress and of what good people feel they must do. Sensitive and evocatively written, this is an impressive debut for journalist Moran. Recommended for large collections.?Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, Md.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Journalist Moran takes on a daunting subject--the Holocaust--through a narrow but encompassing focus in this first novel. The man who knocks on the Lukassers' door in the Austrian Tirol village of Sankt Vero is Dr. Robert Weiss, who years before saved the life of the Lukassers' infant son Niki by performing an emergency appendectomy while staying as a paying guest in their home; he has escaped transportation to the death camps. The narrator, Niki, is a teenager when Weiss returns, the only one of the five children born to taciturn grocer Lukasser and his nervous wife to live into adolescence. When Lukasser, despite the fears of his wife and mother, constructs a tiny room--"the box"--in the barn for "their" Jew, Niki and his friend Sigi, a blind girl, become Weiss' lifeline. Over the next two years, relationships shift and change: between Weiss and his benefactors/jailers, within the family, and among the villagers. A Book-of-the-Month Club and Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection; expect interest. Mary Carroll