The Sonderberg Case

From the Nobel laureate and author of the masterly Night: a deeply felt, beautifully written novel of morality, guilt, and innocence.

Despite personal success, Yedidyah--a theater critic in New York City, husband to a stage actress, father to two sons--finds himself increasingly drawn to the past; as he reflects on his life, he longingly reminisces about the relationships he once had with the men in his family: his father, his uncle, his grandfather. But his longing takes on another aspect when he is assigned to cover the murder trial of a German expatriate named Werner Sonderberg. Sonderberg returned alone from a walk in the Adirondacks with an elderly uncle, whose lifeless body was soon retrieved from the woods. His plea is enigmatic: "Guilty . . . and not guilty." But it strikes a chord in Yedidyah, plunging him into feelings that bring him harrowingly close to madness. As Sonderberg's trial moves along a path of dizzying yet revelatory twists and turns,…