This is the valuable part of the novel: in Paris, in hiding, Gretel and her mother, an unrepentant Nazi, are shaved at a kangaroo court; she is attracted to violent sex with men who hate her because she is German; in Australia, she meets the psychopath she loved as a child, her father’s assistant, and they discuss their complicity; she becomes pregnant by a Jewish man. John Boyne studied English literature at Trinity College Dublin and creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He is now the author of 21 books. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

I told myself that none of it had been my fault, that I had been just a child, but there was that small part of my brain that asked me, if I was entirely innocent, then why was I living under an assumed name?” The author asks the question: What would you have done in twelve-year-old Gretel's shoes? Would you have alerted the authorities once the war was over? Did she turn a blind eye and pretend it wasn't happening? And with the death of her brother, did she pay a high enough price? When someone makes a mistake early in her young life, is she doomed for the rest of her days - can she be forgiven? Some 16 years ago, his novel aimed at younger readers, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, helped introduce a new generation to the Nazi machinery of death.

Unlike “Striped Pajamas,” “All the Broken Places” is intended for adults. It’s filled with sex, violence, suicide attempts and bad language — and also some of the details of the Holocaust that were omitted from the first book. It mentions the Sobibor death camp by name, for example, and also takes the time to correct Bruno’s childish assumptions about the death camps being a “farm.” I do feel it’s a positive contribution to the world and to Holocaust studies,” said Boyne, who estimates that he has personally spoken to between 500 and 600 schools about “Striped Pajamas.” You can’t prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel.”—John Irving, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The World According to Garp In his author’s note, John Boyne states that “All the Broken Places” “is a novel about guilt, complicity, and grief, a book that sets out to examine how culpable a young person might be, given the historical events unfolding around her, and whether such a person can ever cleanse themselves of the crimes committed by the people she loved.” He also stated that “I have less interest in the monsters than I do in the people who knew what the monsters were doing and deliberately looked away.” While over a third of English secondary schools use The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and its film adaptation in Holocaust lessons, Auschwitz Memorial replied that the book “should be avoided by anyone who studies or teaches about the Holocaust”. The tweet linked to a 2019 essay in which Hannah May Randall, the head of learning at Holocaust Centre North, highlights the novel’s historical inaccuracies and faults it for perpetuating “dangerous myths”.

Boyne delivers a seemingly redundant adult sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas...Boyne creates vivid characters, but a certain thematic obviousness dilutes the dramatic effect. Fans of the first book may enjoy revisiting the material as adults, but this doesn't quite land on its own." - Publishers Weekly All the Broken Places is a sequel to Boyne's 2006 book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and follows the now 91-year-old older sister of Bruno from that book, Gretel. Gretel has lived in London for decades, never speaking of her childhood in Nazi Germany as the daughter of a concentration camp commandant. Her life is upended when a new family moves in next door whose circumstances force her to confront her own past. [1] Plot [ edit ] And what is this novel? He sees it as a formulaic university novel of “self-involved students who think they are the first people in the world ever to have sex” and in which the authors, “terrified of offending anyone make sure they hit, in each book, all the right things: gay people, trans people, people of colour”. A scene from the 2008 film adaptation of John Boyne's The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas: He has tied the narrative threads he left dangling in that book with his latest release, All the Broken Places, the story of Bruno’s older sister Gretel. Now a widow in her 90s, Gretel is living in London’s Mayfair, nursing a small fortune and the poisonous secret of her death camp father. John Boyne holds up his phone proudly to show the display. It reads: “143 days since escaped hell.”An old woman is seen at key moments in a lifelong struggle to deal with the guilt-laden secrets of her youth. Boyne’s style continues to be hypnotic and sharp. He delivers a Holocaust story with brutal precision and bold prose.