The Gustav Sonata

Winner of the 2016 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction

A poignant tale about the enduring friendship between two men under the shadow of the Second World War.

Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo. An only child, he lives alone with Emilie, the mother he adores but who treats him with bitter severity. He begins an intense friendship with a Jewish boy his age, talented and mercurial Anton Zwei…