The Sweetness: A Novel

(Paperback, New edition)

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The Sweetness was a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards (reviewed by Publishers Weekly), and won the Deborah Hecht Memorial prize for fiction at Stony Brook Southampton College.

2014 marks 69 years since the liberation of Auschwitz; International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan. 27) mourns the death of more than 6 million people Jews, over a million of which were children.

The book will pub in September, just in time for Jewish Book Month (October).

This year, Lithuanians, who survived the Holocaust, are caught in a controversy over reparations, making the books subject matter timely.

Reviews

[A] stirring debut novel of Holocaust survivor guiltguilt about being safe. Told with candor and tenderness ... Booklist A Jewish girl in Eastern Europe and her teenage American cousin experience the Holocaust years in vastly different ways in this bittersweet novel... A tender look at immigrants in America and Nazi victims in Europe succeeds in educating and engaging readers. Kirkus [The Sweetness] is a beautifully crafted portrait of life in its rawest form during a time of great unrest. Publishers Weekly, Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards As Berger's novel moves back and forth from Vilna to Brooklyn, the focus is on Rosha and Mira as well as on Charlie's sister Jeanette. All three attempt to make sense of a life that often makes no sense at all. VERDICT: In this engaging debut, a semifinalist for Amazon's annual Breakthrough Novel Award, readers gain three different views of the effects of World War II on ordinary people. Library Journal Sande Boritz Bergers impressive debut novel examines the lives of two Jewish girls, cousins separated by an ocean and connected by brutal world events. Ms. Berger doesnt shrink from the rough history that informs her heroines lives, but she mitigates its harshness with a deep measure of sympathy and hope. Hilma Wolitzer, author of An Available Man Sande Boritz Berger has created a complete, rich novel about survivor guilt and innocence. The guilt is readily understood. The innocence is an original thought. How are people who survived the Nazis supposed to know how to behave in the face of unique evil The Kanes (Kaninskys) endured the general experience of Jews who got out. But within that experience, they are also a family of complicated individuals, who pursue differentiated goals. It is thistheir individuality, not unlike that of the Anne Frank familythat gives Ms. Bergers novel its power as a work of art. Roger Rosenblatt, author of The Boy Detective Ms. Berger has captured the essence of conflict between survivor guilt and the innocence of youth as she compares the circumstances between one familys choice to stay as the other flees. While the tone is not maudlin, Bergers voice resonates across the pages with a deep and soulful pain as she depicts the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Vilna Ghetto. It is clear she did her research given she infused historical information and tied her story line to actual events with the backdrop of an epically tragic time in history. Diane Lunsford, Feathered Quill Reviews It is always pleasant to read an author who can take you back to the past with minute details that cause you to revive faded memories. Sande Boritz Berger does this for Americans who lived during the 1940s by recalling items such as the monthly magazine Modern Screen, one of the first journals to record the private lives of movie stars, mascara which came in cake form and had to be applied with a wet brush, and cut glass doorknobs. She used these touches to set the scene for life in a residential middle class section of Brooklyn as well as for contrast of the superficial lives of Americans who were untouched (or thought they were) by World War II and those who terrifyingly lived through it in Poland. Berger tells the story of two girls, Mira, a teen living in a large house on Avenue T in Brooklyn and Rosha, an eight-year-old, living in the basement of a strangers house in Poland. These two are cousins who have never met. And the suspense leading up to when their lives will intersect is kept up throughout the book. Jewish Book World Original characters, against a backdrop of vivid and exact period detail, drive this highly readable saga of two uniquely different Jewish girls and their families during World War II. Warm, rich, and smooth as glass, their stories sweep over you and into your heart. A solid read for devotees of WWII literature, as much for its retelling of the ravages of the Holocaust as for its insightful vision of a home front population shaken by shock waves from abroad. Mary Glickman, author of Home in the Morning

Author Bio

After two decades as a scriptwriter and video/film producer for Fortune 500 companies, Sande Boritz Berger returned to writing fiction and non-fiction full time. For years she attended The Writers Voice in NYC and writing conferences at Stony Brook Southampton College, where she once got lost driving Joyce Carol Oates to a dinner in her honor. Ms. Bergers stories and essays appear in a multitude of publications, including Every Woman Has a Story (Warner Books), Ophelia's Mom (Crown) and Aunties: Thirty-Five Writers Celebrate Their Other Mother (Ballantine). Her fiction and poetry have appeared in the Southampton Review, Confrontation Literary Review, Tri-Quarterly Magazine, Epiphany, and other publications. She received first place in the Winthrop B. Palmer Poetry awards at Long Island University, and her short story from which this novel evolved, The Sweetness, received a fiction prize from Moment Magazine. The Sweetness was a semi-finalist in Amazon's annual Breakthrough Novel Awards. Ms. Berger has taught creative writing as a volunteer at NYU's Medical Center Rusk Institute's pediatric division and recently completed an MFA in Writing and Literature at Stony Brook Southampton College. In 2010 she received the colleges Deborah Hecht Memorial prize for fiction. After two decades as a scriptwriter and video/film producer for Fortune 500 companies, Sande Boritz Berger returned to writing fiction and non-fiction full time. For years she attended The Writers Voice in NYC and writing conferences at Stony Brook Southampton College, where she once got lost driving Joyce Carol Oates to a dinner in her honor. Ms. Bergers stories and essays appear in a multitude of publications, including Every Woman Has a Story (Warner Books), Ophelia's Mom (Crown) and Aunties: Thirty-Five Writers Celebrate Their Other Mother (Ballantine). Her fiction and poetry have appeared in the Southampton Review, Confrontation Literary Review, Tri-Quarterly Magazine, Epiphany, and other publications. She received first place in the Winthrop B. Palmer Poetry awards at Long Island University, and her short story from which this novel evolved, The Sweetness, received a fiction prize from Moment Magazine. The Sweetness was a semi-finalist in Amazon's annual Breakthrough Novel Awards. Ms. Berger has taught creative writing as a volunteer at NYU's Medical Center Rusk Institute's pediatric division and recently completed an MFA in Writing and Literature at Stony Brook Southampton College. In 2010 she received the colleges Deborah Hecht Memorial prize for fiction.