The Absent Moon: A Memoir of a Short Childhood and a Long Depression

A beautiful work that is in turn haunting, touching and redemptive’ SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE ‘Generous in spirit, devoid of self-pity, and an authentic literary achievement’ ANDREW SOLOMON —— When Luiz Schwarcz was a child, he was told little about his grandfather L¡ios, a Hungarian Jew. Only later would he learn that L¡ios had ordered his son, Luiz’s father, to leap from a train taking them to a Nazi death camp, while L¡ios himself was carried on to his death. What Luiz did know was that his father’s melancholia haunted the house he grew up in. As many children of trauma do, Luiz assumed responsibility for his parents’ happiness, and for a time blossomed into the family prodigy. But then, at a high point of outward success, he was brought low by a devastating mental breakdown. This astonishing memoir interrogates a personal story of mental health through a family history of murder, dispossession, silence and the long echo of the Holocaust across generations – animated by the love and compassion of a master storyteller. —– ‘Brave, honest, devastating, and hopeful … Schwarcz is a masterful storyteller’ ARIANA NEUMANN ‘A lyrical and intimate portrait of the author’s lifelong, harrowing battle with depression’ ABRAHAM VERGHESE