Book Review: ‘The Umbrella Maker’s Son: A WWII Novel’ By Tod Lending

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The book is in stores on Tuesday, Feb. 11th from Harper. Click on the link to buy a copy. https://amzn.to/40BspT5

Author Tod Lending has been Oscar-nominated and has won Emmy awards and now has written an intense, well-written novel about one young man’s journey, to try and save his family and find his girlfriend, Zelda, in Poland. Reuven is 17, is a Polish Jew, lives with his family and helps out at the family business, making custom umbrellas. The year is 1939 and things are okay in Krakow, until the Germans invade and all hell breaks loose. Zelda and her family take off for a cousin’s farm hoping to be safe. Reuven’s family loses their business, then their apartment, and then has to flee after something happens with a German soldier. They use the Jewist underground in their attempt, and only Reuven is successful in escaping. We follow along on his journey, eventually making it back to the Jewish Ghetto, in Krakow, and searching for Zelda. When he finds her two years later, nothing is the same, but their love has survived, and he makes a desperate plan to escape to Sweden and hopes to start a new life, but fate intervined. This is one of the best WWII novels I have read this year, and I’ve read a lot. It’s a love story and a war horror story at the same time. This is one you will not want to put done. Have tissues handy, you will need them. This is one of the best debut novels I have read in a long time.