W, or the Memory of Childhood

From the author of Life A Users Manual comes an equally mind-bending novel: an interpretive vision of the Holocaust and a dystopian world. W or The Memory of Childhood is a narrative that reflects a great writers effort to come to terms with his childhood during the Nazi occupation of France. Perec tells two parallel stories. The first is autobiographical describing his wartime boyhood. The second tale denser more disturbing more horrifying is the allegorical story of W a mythical island off Tierra del Fuego governed by the thrall of the Olympic ideal where losers are tortured and winners held in temporary idolatry. As the reader soon discovers W is a place where it is more important to be lucky than to be deserving and you have to fight to live...no recourse no mercy no salvation not even any hope that time will sort things out. Perecs memory of the Holocaust and vision about its meaning has resulted in an astonishing achievement that stands with the best of his work.