My Parents’ Dark Room – Developing the Past (2019)
What is it about?
When his mother moves into a care home, Jonas, an expatriate German history teacher, inherits an old cigar box containing relics from his childhood. However, on closer inspection, it also contains more sinister items. Will the page torn out of his mother’s 1945 diary and his father’s undeveloped film roll reveal any clues about his parents’ role in the Nazi party? And where is the rest of the diary? Who has hidden it all these years and why? Jonas finds himself at the start of a journey which will lead him to discover some unsettling secrets. Should he have opened Pandora’s box?
Reviews:
A most enjoyable read. A skillful and fascinating entwinement of a personal family memoir, with historical events during and just after the war – as the author describes it, “history from the bottom up”. Jonas, having inherited a cigar box, from his mother, of childhood memorabilia, sets off to explore his family’s past, with unexpected and shocking results. And throw into the mix, a touching and frustrating love story, and you have the recipe for thrilling page turner.
Highly recommended. Hammond Smith
Amazon Customer
My parents darkroom is a well structured narrative soundly grounded in its historical context and based on the author’s personal experience of a young impressionable youth growing up in post war Germany. The pace of the narrative switching between past and present kept me turning the pages until the last.
Immersive and stimulating with well-formed characters. A thoroughly enjoyable read. The novel deserves a wide audience.
Mike Roe
A thoroughly enjoyable read. The impression I get is the authors’ search for his own answers relating to his childhood and life growing up in post-war Germany. I hope that this story will help to bring some element of closure. However as the story itself draws to an end, I get the impression that the father-son relationship will never get the chance to be evaluated and explained from both points of view. Both history and the future needs more stories like this.
Chris Holt
This book had it all, twists, turns and a love story. For me, hearing about the war from a German perspective had me gripped and wanting more. A real book you can’t put down. I’m hoping there will be a sequel!
Amazon Customer
John Tordoff 5.0 out of 5 stars
‘What did you do in the War Daddy?’ 5 July 2019
Format: Kindle EditionEveryone should read this book. The story told by Jonas in My Parent’s Darkroom, as he discovers the things Mum and Dad never told him, has relevance to us all. This is especially true today with the ever present danger that history is about to repeat itself.
But it is as well a compulsive, page turning thriller, following Jonas’s story which pieces together the jigsaw of his parents involvement in the Second World War. Read it!
Official Review: My Parents’ Darkroom by Reinhard Tenberg
Post by Cecilia_L » 09 Jul 2019, 03:10
[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of “My Parents’ Darkroom” by Reinhard Tenberg.]
“I don’t know what you did in the war, Dad. I was always afraid to ask – all of us were – and now it’s too late. However, I’m certain the war left deep scars on you–not just physically, but it changed who you once were. And, since you are a part of my history, I need to find out more about you.”
After his mother is placed into a care home, Jonas inherits a wooden cigar box containing relics from his parents’ past. The box includes some trinkets that trigger memories from his childhood, but when he discovers a 1945 page from his mother’s war diary, an undeveloped film canister, and 1939 ciné film, Jonas realizes how little he knows about his parents’ history. In the suspenseful historical fiction, My Parents’ Darkroom: Developing the Past, by Reinhard Tenberg, Jonas tries to unravel the family secrets surrounding his parents’ involvement under the Nazis during the war. In his search for answers and the rest of his mother’s missing diary, he falls in love with Bettina, who seems to have her own secrets. Can their love survive the shocking truth?
Not only is the 189-page book well written and flawlessly edited, the author skilfully pairs strong characterization and a suspenseful plot. The page-turner is written in the first-person narrative from the perspective of Jonas, a professor at a London university, who teaches post-war German history. As is often the case with brothers, Jonas and Helmut are polar opposites. Jonas is compelled to find out the truth about the degree of his parents’ involvement with the Nazi Party, while Helmut prefers to let sleeping dogs lie. However, both brothers are relatably flawed and believable. When Bettina enters the story, the author reveals layers of her character over the course of the story.
I most liked the suspenseful aspect; Jonas was so driven to find out the truth about his parents that it elevated the plot to a mystery that was hard to put down. Each time a question was answered; another took its place. Why was the page torn from his mother’s diary, and where is the rest of it? Who are the people in the photograph with his father? Does Bettina know more than she is letting on?
There honestly isn’t anything I disliked about the book. Although I tend to prefer mysteries with tidy endings wrapped in a bow, I found the not-so-wrapped-up ending satisfying, as it prompted the hope of a sequel. I’m pleased to rate the book 4 out of 4 stars. I recommend it to both fans of historical fiction and suspense lovers. However, I caution sensitive readers regarding references to the Holocaust, although they are not graphic in nature. Due to the subject matter, profanity, and a few sexual scenes, the book is intended for a mature audience.
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