Cirrus@Austlit

'Ruth Rothwax, a successful, independent, New York woman with her own business, Rothwax Correspondence, can find order and meaning in the words she writes for other people - condolence letters, thank-you letters, even you-were-great-in-bed letters. But as the devoted daughter of Edek Rothwax, an Auschwitz survivor with a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to the English language, Ruth can find no words to help her understand the loss her family experienced during World War II. Ruth is obsessed with the idea of returning to Poland with her father, Edek, but she doesn't quite understand why she feels this so intensely. To make sense of her family's past - and the way her parents' lives were suddenly torn apart by the Nazis - yes. To visit the places where her beloved mother and father lived and almost died, certainly. But there's more to this trip than Ruth's extraordinary perceptiveness can identify. By facing Poland and the past, she can confront her own future.' (Publisher's blurb)