Comedy in a Minor Key: A Novel
A German Jew who survived the war by hiding in Holland, Keilson later became a psychiatrist and published the first systemic study of children who had suffered from Nazi persecution. This selection is one of two novels Keilson began writing during the war. Its better-known sibling, Death of the Adversary (Eng. trans 1962), explored the thoughts of an oppressed man; plotless and psychological, it was something of an aesthetic experiment. Not previously translated, Comedy in a Minor Key takes a different approach: it tells the story of a Jewish man who dies in hiding from the perspective of the Dutch couple who shelter him and dispose of his body, and offers only slight clues as to the thoughts of the man in hiding. The story is simple and lean, but irony is plentiful, particularly when the couple must themselves go into hiding after realizing that tags bearing their name were left on the deceased’s clothing when his body was discovered. In spite of potentially comedic elements (and its title), most readers will not find this to be an essentially humorous book. They will find, however, a brisk, engaging work of Holocaust literature that deserves to be better known. --Brendan Driscoll