Restitution: Book Talk & Signing with Janet Lee Berg

4824 Chateau Avenue,Charleston SC 29405

14 October, 2022

Description

Join us on October 14 for an author reading, Q&A, and book signing with Janet Lee Berg, author of Restitution and Rembrandt’s Shadow, two novels of historical fiction based on the true history of the author's family. Copies of the book are available from Itinerant Literate! About the BooksRembrandt's ShadowBUY THE BOOKSylvie Rosenberg escaped the Holocaust—but can she escape the past? Angela Martino is haunted by events from her childhood and struggles to resolve her guilt. Can these two women from different generations reconcile their own turmoil—or pay the price of an even greater loss? October 20, 1942. Benjamin Katz and his frightened family stand at the train station in occupied Holland, unsure if they would be taken to their freedom—or the death camp. Sylvie, his granddaughter, who was six years old at the time, would later recall the madness as they wondered if their desperate last minute escape would work. When the German officer received the order to allow the escape he said, “I would have much rather been given the order to kill all of you.” Their entire art collection had long made them a prime target of Adolf Hitler and his greedy henchmen. Now they had one big trade—a Rembrandt in exchange for twenty-five lives. Based on a true story, Rembrandt’s Shadow is the story of two women from different generations—each with their own distinct horrific memories—who find themselves at odds when forced to confront the here and now. RestitutionBUY THE BOOKSylvie Rosenberg was once the aristocratic daughter of a prominent Dutch art dealer, until the Nazi invasion of Holland changed everything. Forced to part with his astonishing collection of masterpieces, her father managed to trade a Rembrandt for the lives of twenty-five family members, including Sylvie. Many years later, in America, Sylvie is on a path of self-destruction, still equating love with all the "things" that were taken away from her. Pocketing small items at first, eventually her hopelessness leads to a monumental betrayal, dismantling the lives of her son, Michael, a writer and Vietnam vet still struggling with the consequences of war, and his schoolteacher wife, Angela, as they struggle to fill their own void after failed attempts to conceive a child. Desperate to win back their love, Sylvie returns to her homeland to face old ghosts and the Dutch judicial system, seeking restitution of her family's masterpieces. But the battle proves far more difficult than she imagined . . . About the AuthorJanet Lee Berg’s debut novel Rembrandt’s Shadow was published by Post Hill Press/Simon & Schuster on September 20, 2016, and her stand-alone sequel, titled Restitution, was released by Koehler Publishers on September 30, 2020. Both books are based on the true history of her family during the Holocaust, as appeared in the New York Times in 2007 and 2018. Berg’s novels include research by the author of The Rape of Europa, Lynn Nicholas, the world’s leading expert on art pilfered during World War II, and have found a home in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.