Motherland: A Novel

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Motherland is inspired by stories from author Maria Hummel's father and his German childhood, and letters between her grandparents that were hidden in an attic wall for fifty years. It is the author's attempt to reckon with the paradox of her father--a product of her grandparents' fiercely protective love and their status as Mitlaufer, Germans who "went along" with Nazism, reaping its benefits and later paying the consequences. At the center of Motherland lies the Kappus family: Frank is a reconstructive surgeon who lost his beloved wife in childbirth and two months later marries a young woman charged with looking after the surviving baby and his two grieving sons when Frank is drafted into medical military service. Alone in the house, Liesl attempts to keep the children fed with dwindling food supplies, safe from the constant Allied air attacks and the tides of desperate refugees flooding their town. When one child begins to mentally unravel, Liesl must discover the source of the boy's infirmity or lose him forever to Hadamar, the infamous hospital for "unfit" children. The novel bears witness to the shame and courage of Third Reich families during the devastating final days of the war, as each family member's fateful choice lead the reader deeper into questions of complicity and innocence, to the novel's heartbreaking and unforgettable conclusion.

Reviews

Haunting novel . . . Searing and honest, her book illuminates the reality of war away from the front linesbetrayal and compromise, neighbor turning on neighbor, the unexpected heroism of ordinary peoplewith a compassion and depth of understanding that will touch your heart.People

This quiet novel relies on the profound interiority of its characters. At its heart is what is repressed on both an individual and collective scale . . . What we know now is never quite the same as what we knew then, and Motherlandpresents an astute acknowledgment of bothnot by way of excuse nor explanation but simply exploration. It presents history as created by the people who push events into being and those who respond . . .Hummel's focus on the concrete, physical experiences of one family is a fine, brave antidote to abstraction, and does what good historical fiction does best: explores what has passed in those undocumented rests between the things we know to be true. The San Francisco Chronicle

A moving story of love and privation, sacrifice and survival . . . Hummel, a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University,delivers an intimate portrait of family life during wartime. San Jose Mercury News

Like Sebastian FaulksBirdsong,Motherlandis more than a story of separated loversit charts, with great poise and more than a little poetry, the challenges of a time when allegiances, to one side or the other, were both necessary and potentially disastrous. Bustle

Hummel somehow manages, without sensationalism, to drive home the humanity and suffering of the people who are frequently considered only as the enemy . . .[A] humane and compelling story. BookPage

However, these all-too-human failings are so honestly rendered that a stark question emerges: Who among us, faced with similar circumstances, would have acted differently Heart-rending and chilling. Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Fear, grief, and the will to survive fuse in thisbeautiful novelabout the inner life of a German family in the final months of World War II . . . Motherlandoccupies a relatively unexploredspace in World War II literature . . . The humiliations and guilt that each family member endures for the others aredescribed with grace and humanity in this absorbing story.While stunningly intimate,Motherlandis expansive in feeling and scope. Extending beyond a simple historical drama, this book is a reminder of the reach of love, how it can blind, and how it can heal. Publishers Weekly (starred)

In prose that is both spare and heavily laden with the exhausted emotion of hard living, Hummelmaintains a claustrophobic undercurrent of feareven when describing mundane daily tasks.Dark and uncompromising, Motherland illuminates a little-examined aspect of the war. Booklist

In stunning, pitch-perfect prose, Maria Hummel gives us a deeply moving portrait of lives on the wrong side of history. This isn't just another World War II novel; it's a spectacular story about what it means to love and hope in the most difficult times. Jesmyn Ward,Salvage the Bones, Winner of the National Book Award

This is a tender, profound novel of a young woman who steps into a shattered German family and makes it her own. The radiance of her sacrifice, and of Hummel's storytelling, illuminates this dark chapter of human history with heart and revelation. Adam Johnson,The Orphan Masters Son, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Through the intimate story of one German family at the end of the Second World War,Motherlandweaves a universal tale of moral obligation, wartime complicity, and the lengths we will go to protect those we love.From the bare bones of her own family's history, Maria Hummel has built a visceral, magnificent creature. Anthony Marra,A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, 2013 NBCC long list nominee

Maria Hummel draws upon her family history to create a spellbinding novel that examines the many facets of motherhood, during a time of war and beyond.Motherlandis a vivid, heart-stopping depiction of a German family's struggle to stay together during the devastating Allied bombing of their small town. You wont soon forget these characters or the stories they have to tell." Susan Sherman,The Little Russian

A courageous and unsettling novel arising from the questions that Maria Hummel had about her grandparents lives during the Third Reich. How much did they know How did they survive UrsulaHegi,Stones from the River

Author Bio

Maria Hummel is the author of the novels Wilderness Run and House and Fire(Copper Canyon, 2013), winner of the APR/Honickman First Book prize in poetry. Her poetry and prose have appeared in Poetry, New England Review, Ploughshares, The Sun, and The Believer. Her work was also featured in the 2012 Pushcart Prize anthology, and she was a finalist in Narrative's second Annual Poetry Contest. A former Stegner Fellow in Poetry, Hummel is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University and lives with her husband and sons in San Francisco.