What We're Reading: The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn

I've been writing about The Lost for the past several months.

I did finally finish the book, and it turns out that once you're past the first 50 or so pages, it's an emotional drain. The whole way.

I'm glad I wove some fluffy fiction in throughout the book.

I'm also very glad I read it.

In the end, Mendelsohn finds his family. He even stands in the spot where his grandfather's brother and his daughter hid – a three-by-three basement, about eight feet deep.

For the spatially challenged among you, imagine eating, sleeping, going to the toilet, resting and everything else you could do, in your refrigerator.

With your daughter.

Or your father.

Mendelsohn is able to touch the earth where his great-uncle and his mother's cousin were shot after they were discovered.

It's a long, exhausting journey; you should take it yourself to see how he gets there.

The author spent the better part of seven years writing the book. Eight people who were instrumental to the writing died between the time Mendelsohn met them and the time the book was published. Except for one one of them – who died just before Mendelsohn was able to meet her, though he did get to speak with her on the phone.

One thing that strikes me about the book is the way Mendelsohn is able to organize the narrative for his readers. It's a long, convoluted journey. There's some fact, there's some speculation, there are a lot of contradictory stories.

Another thing that strikes me is the amount of help Mendelsohn is able to dig up. Not only from his family (between his parents' stories and his brother's photography) and his teachers (one travels with him more than once), but from total strangers – a younger man who happens to be studying the Jews of the area from which his family came carts him around Poland and Ukraine, translating, for days at a time; a man who has already taken it upon himself to track down all the survivors from the area carts him around Israel, translating.

Serendipity, kindness, coincidence: these are all part of the story, and all in a big way.