Day After Night by Anita Diamant

Book Review by Bess Newman

Anita Diamant, the best-selling author of The Red Tent, has a new novel about the experiences of four women who survived the Nazi regime in Europe only to find themselves detained in a detainment camp in Haifa, in modern-day Israel. Diamant's novel is a fascinating tale about the aftermath of the Holocaust and the struggle that Jewish people of all nationalities faced as they worked to establish a new country.

Pros

Based on a true story, 'Day After Night' is a fascinating historical tale

Cons

'Day After Night' tells the stories of 4 or 5 different women, lessening the power of each narrative

Description

'Day After Night' by Anita Diamant was published in September 2009
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
304 pages

Guide Review - 'Day After Night' by Anita Diamant- Book Review

Atlit was an internment camp run by British soldiers in Haifa after the end of World War II. Anita Diamant's latest novel, Day After Night, tells the story of several women who fled Nazi-occupied Europe for the Jewish settlements in then-Palestine, only to find themselves confined at Atlit as illegal immigrants. When the story begins, the women are safe from the horrors of the Holocaust, and yet they cannot shake the nightmares and terror they survived.

That's not to say that Day After Night is bleak or hopeless; Diamant does a masterful job of weaving in the recent horror of these women's lives with the mundane chores of life in camp and their hopes for the future. Day After Night is based on a true story, a lesser known piece of history that is worth the telling.

The cast of characters in Day After Night is large, perhaps necessarily, which means the story provides snapshots of different experiences but doesn't benefit from the power or emotion that would come with a profound look at one person. Nevertheless, Day After Night is an interesting and well-written book that will certainly please Diamant's fans.

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