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John Boyne

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All the Broken Places: A Novel Kindle Edition

by John Boyne (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.6 17,251 ratings

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“You can’t prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel.” —John Irving, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The World According to Garp

“Exceptional, layered and compelling…This book moves like a freight train.” —Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of In Love

From the New York Times bestselling author John Boyne, a devastating, beautiful story about a woman who must confront the sins of her own terrible past, and a present in which it is never too late for bravery

Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn’t talk about her escape from Nazi Germany at age 12. She doesn’t talk about the grim post-war years in France with her mother. Most of all, she doesn’t talk about her father, who was the commandant of one of the Reich’s most notorious extermination camps.

Then, a new family moves into the apartment below her. In spite of herself, Gretel can’t help but begin a friendship with the little boy, Henry, though his presence brings back memories she would rather forget. One night, she witnesses a disturbing, violent argument between Henry’s beautiful mother and his arrogant father, one that threatens Gretel’s hard-won, self-contained existence.

All The Broken Places moves back and forth in time between Gretel’s girlhood in Germany to present-day London as a woman whose life has been haunted by the past. Now, Gretel faces a similar crossroads to one she encountered long ago. Back then, she denied her own complicity, but now, faced with a chance to interrogate her guilt, grief and remorse, she can choose to save a young boy. If she does, she will be forced to reveal the secrets she has spent a lifetime protecting. This time, she can make a different choice than before—whatever the cost to herself….

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399 pages
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Pamela Dorman Books
Publication date

November 29, 2022
File size

4465 KB
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Popular Highlights in this book

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For the first time, I fully understood that I would have to lie about everything, every day, for the rest of my life, if I was to survive.
Highlighted by 431 Kindle readers
“It’s no longer a fiction, Gretel. Tell a story often enough and it becomes the truth.”
Highlighted by 392 Kindle readers
Kurt Kotler, the former Untersturmführer in that other place, personal aide to my father, and the boy with whom I had first fallen in love, had drawn a fence.
Highlighted by 261 Kindle readers

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

“When is a monster’s child culpable? Guilt and complicity are multifaceted. John Boyne is a maestro of historical fiction. You can’t prepare yourself for the magnitude and emotional impact of this powerful novel.”
—John Irving, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The World According to Garp

“This novel, this exceptional, layered and compelling story, is built on modern history and all of us people who live it. The protagonist, the elderly, forthright and mysterious Mrs. Fernsby, is more than memorable and every one of Boyne’s characters, and every scene, dark or light, is limned in truth and insight. This book moves like a freight train,with force and consequence for the reader.”
—Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of In Love

“John Boyne has written a propulsive, heartrending mystery that delivers on both an intellectual and emotional level. It is the story of Gretel Fernsby, a ninety-one year old woman who has spent her life keeping a terrible secret, and the reckoning she faces when past and present collide. Complex. Ferocious. Beautiful and hard. I could not put this novel down.”
—Ariel Lawhon, New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène

“What an incredible feat of storytelling. All the Broken Places is a stark confrontation of evil, an examination of guilt and deflection, and an old-fashioned page-turner. John treads the finest of narrative lines with skill and grace and proves himself yet again to be among the world's greatest storytellers.”
—Donal Ryan, #1 international bestselling author of The Queen of Dirt Island and Strange Flowers

“A powerful novel about secrets and atonement after Auschwitz… All the Broken Places is a defence of literature’s need to shine a light on the darkest aspects of human nature; and it does so with a novelist’s skill, precision and power.”
—The Guardian

“This is a powerful page-turner, a novel that tackles complex issues while keeping its reader utterly gripped. Gretel's "final story" is an essential one.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

“Clear your calendar. Get All the Broken Places and just don’t make any plans, other than to read and read and read.”
—Washington Blade

“A complex, thoughtful character study that avoids easy answers.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“In Gretel, Boyne has created a magnificently dyspeptic protagonist whose self-assurance, sharp tongue and wry humor are at odds with her private agony.”
—the Financial Times

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of December 2022:John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and the author of one of all my all-time favorite novels, The Heart’s Invisible Furies) returns to WWII in his latest page-turning novel, which we named one of the best books of 2022. What does it mean to be culpable? If you know something bad is happening is it your duty to stop it? What if you're just a child? Moving backward and forward in time, from Germany to Australia, Paris to a posh apartment in London, Gretel has spent the majority of her life running, hiding, and dealing with her past and the actions of her father, a high-ranking Nazi—will it all catch up with her? There's so much nuance, so much humanity in this book. At times you root for Gretel, at times you want to shake her. In a world that feels increasingly black and white, Boyne offers the grey in this sweeping and magnetic historical novel. — Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Part 1

The Devil's Daughter

London 2022 / Paris 1946

One

If every man is guilty of all the good he did not do, as Voltaire suggested, then I have spent a lifetime convincing myself that I am innocent of all the bad. It has been a convenient way to endure decades of self-imposed exile from the past, to see myself as a victim of historical amnesia, acquitted from complicity, and exonerated from blame.

My final story begins and ends, however, with something as trivial as a box cutter. Mine had broken a few days earlier and, finding it a useful tool to keep in a kitchen drawer, I paid a visit to my local hardware shop to purchase a new one. Upon my return, a letter was waiting for me from an estate agent, a similar one delivered to every resident of Winterville Court, politely informing each of us that the flat below my own was being put up for sale. The previous occupant, Mr. Richardson, had lived in Flat One for some thirty years but died shortly before Christmas, leaving the dwelling empty. His daughter, a speech therapist, resided in New York and, to the best of my knowledge, had no plans to return to London, so I had made my peace with the fact that it would not be long before I was forced to interact with a stranger in the lobby, perhaps even having to feign an interest in his or her life or be required to divulge small details about my own.

Mr. Richardson and I had enjoyed the perfect neighborly relationship in that we had not exchanged a single word since 2008. In the early years of his residence, we'd been on good terms and he had occasionally come upstairs for a game of chess with my late husband, Edgar, but somehow, he and I had never moved past the formalities. He always addressed me as "Mrs. Fernsby" while I referred to him as "Mr. Richardson." The last time I set foot in his flat had been four months after Edgar's death, when he invited me for supper and, having accepted the invitation, I found myself on the receiving end of an amorous advance, which I declined. He took the rejection badly and we became as near to strangers as two people who coexist within a single building can be.

My Mayfair residence is listed as a flat but that is a little like describing Windsor Castle as the Queen's weekend bolthole. Each apartment in our building-there are five in total, one on the ground floor, then two on both floors above-is spread across fifteen hundred square feet of prime London real estate, each with three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and views over Hyde Park that value them, I am reliably informed, at somewhere between £2 and £3 million apiece. Edgar came into a substantial amount of money a few years after we married, an unexpected bequest from a spinster aunt, and while he would have preferred to move to a more peaceful area outside Central London, I had done some research of my own and was determined not only to live in Mayfair but to reside in this particular building, should it ever prove possible. Financially, this had seemed unlikely but then, one day, like a deus ex machina, Aunt Belinda passed away and everything changed. I'd always planned on explaining to Edgar the reason why I was so desperate to live here, but somehow never did, and I rather regret that now.

My husband was very fond of children but I agreed only to one, giving birth to our son, Caden, in 1961. In recent years, as the property has increased in value, Caden has encouraged me to sell and purchase something smaller in a less expensive part of town, but I suspect this is because he worries that I might live to be a hundred and he is keen to receive a portion of his inheritance while he is still young enough to enjoy it. He is thrice married and now engaged for a fourth time; I have given up on acquainting myself with the women in his life. I find that as soon as one gets to know them, they are dispatched, a new model is installed, and one has to take the time to learn their idiosyncrasies, as one might with a new washing machine or television set. As a child, he treated his friends with similar ruthlessness. We speak regularly on the telephone, and he visits me for supper every two weeks, but we have a complicated relationship, damaged in part by my year-long absence from his life when he was nine years old. The truth is, I am simply not comfortable around children and I find small boys particularly difficult.

My concern about my new neighbor was not that he or she might cause unnecessary noise-these flats are very well insulated and, even with a few weak spots here and there, I had grown accustomed over the years to the various peculiar sounds that rose up through Mr. Richardson's ceiling-but I resented the fact that my ordered world might be upset. I hoped for someone who had no interest in knowing anything about the woman who lived above them. An elderly invalid, perhaps, who rarely left the house and was visited each morning by a home-help. A young professional who disappeared on Friday afternoons to her weekend home and returned late on Sundays, spending the rest of her time at the office or the gym. A rumor spread through the building that a well-known pop musician whose career had peaked in the 1980s had looked at it as a potential retirement home but, happily, nothing came of that.

My curtains twitched whenever the estate agent pulled up outside, escorting a client in to inspect the flat, and I made notes about each potential neighbor. There was a very promising husband and wife in their early seventies, softly spoken, who held each other's hands and asked whether pets were permitted in the building-I was listening on the stairwell-and seemed disappointed when told they were not. A homosexual couple in their thirties who, judging by the distressed condition of their clothing and their general unkempt air must have been fabulously wealthy, but who declared that the "space" was probably a little small for them and they couldn't relate to its "narrative." A young woman with plain features who gave no clue as to her intentions, other than to remark that someone named Steven would adore the high ceilings. Naturally, I hoped for the gays-they make good neighbors and there's little chance of them procreating-but they proved to be the least interested.

And then, after a few weeks, the estate agent no longer brought anyone to visit, the listing vanished from the Internet and I guessed that a deal had been struck. Whether I liked it or not, I would one day wake to find a removals van parked outside and someone, or a collection of someones, inserting a key into the front door and taking up residence beneath me.

Oh, how I dreaded it!

Two

Mother and I escaped Germany in early 1946, only a few months after the war ended, traveling by train from what was left of Berlin to what was left of Paris. Fifteen years old and knowing little of life, I was still coming to terms with the fact that the Axis had been defeated. Father had spoken with such confidence of the genetic superiority of our race and of the FŸhrer's incomparable skills as a military strategist that victory had always seemed assured. And yet, somehow, we had lost.

The journey of almost seven hundred miles across the continent did little to encourage optimism for the future. The cities we passed through were marked by the destruction of recent years while the faces of the people I saw in the stations and carriages were not cheered by the end of the war but scarred by its effects. There was a sense of exhaustion everywhere, a growing realization that Europe could not return to how it had been in 1938 but needed to be rebuilt entirely, as did the spirits of its inhabitants.

The city of my birth had been almost entirely reduced to rubble now, its spoils divided between four of our conquerors. For our protection, we remained hidden in the basements of those few true believers whose homes were still standing until we could be provided with the false papers that would ensure our safe removal from Germany. Our passports now bore the surname of GuŽymard, the pronunciation of which I practiced repeatedly in order to ensure that I sounded as authentic as possible, but while Mother was now to be called Nathalie-my grandmother's name-I remained Gretel.

Every day, fresh details of what had taken place at the camps came to light and Father's name was becoming a byword for criminality of the most heinous nature. While no one suggested that we were as culpable as him, Mother believed that it would spell disaster for us to reveal ourselves to the authorities. I agreed for, like her, I was frightened, although it shocked me to think that anyone could consider me complicit in the atrocities. It's true that, since my tenth birthday, I had been a member of the JungmŠdelbund, but so had every other young girl in Germany. It was mandatory, after all, just like being part of the Deutsches Jungvolk was compulsory for ten-year-old boys. But I had been far less interested in studying the ideology of the party than in taking part in the regular sporting activities with my friends. And when we arrived at that other place, I had only gone beyond the fence once, on that single day that Father had brought me into the camp to observe his work. I tried to tell myself that I had been a bystander, nothing more, and that my conscience was clear, but already I was beginning to question my own involvement in the events I had witnessed.

As our train entered France, however, I grew worried that our accents might give us away. Surely, I reasoned, the recently liberated citizens of Paris, shamed by their prompt capitulation in 1940, would react aggressively toward anyone who spoke as we did? My concern was proven correct when, despite demonstrating that we had more than enough money for a lengthy stay, we were refused rooms at five separate boarding houses; it was only when a woman in place Vend™me took pity on us and shared the address of a nearby lodging where, she said, the landlady asked no questions that we found somewhere to live. Had it not been for her, we might have ended up the wealthiest indigents on the streets.

The room we rented was on the eastern part of Île de la CitŽ and in those early days I preferred to remain close to home, confining myself to walking the short distance from Pont de Sully to Pont Neuf and back again in endless loops, anxious about venturing across bridges into unknown terrain. Sometimes I thought of my brother, who had longed to be an explorer, and of how much he would have enjoyed deciphering those unfamiliar streets, but, at such moments, I was always quick to dismiss his memory.

Mother and I had been living on the Île for two months before I summoned the courage to make my way to le Jardin du Luxembourg, where an abundance of greenery made me feel as if I had stumbled upon Paradise. Such a contrast, I thought, to when we had arrived at that other place and been struck by its barren, desolate nature. Here, one inhaled the perfume of life; there, one choked on the stench of death. I wandered as if in a daze from the Palais to the Medici fountain, and from there toward the pool, only turning away when I saw a coterie of small boys placing wooden boats in the water, the light breeze taking their vessels across to their playmates on the other side. Their laughter and excited conversation provided an upsetting music after the muted distress with which I had become familiar and I struggled to understand how a single continent could play host to such extremes of beauty and ugliness.

One afternoon, taking shelter from the sun on a bench near the boulodrome, I found myself consumed by both grief and guilt, and with tears falling down my face. A handsome boy, perhaps two years my senior, approached wearing a concerned expression to ask what was wrong. I looked up and felt a stirring of desire, a longing for him to put his arms around me or allow me to rest my head upon his shoulder, but when I spoke I fell into old speech patterns, my German accent overpowering my French, and he took a step back, staring at me with undisguised contempt, before summoning all the anger he felt toward my kind and spitting violently in my face and marching away. Strangely, his actions did not diminish my hunger for his touch but increased it. Wiping my cheeks dry, I ran after him, grabbed him by the arm and invited him to take me into the trees, telling him that he could do whatever he wanted with me in the secluded space.

"You can hurt me if you like," I whispered, closing my eyes, thinking that he might slap me hard, drive his fist into my stomach, break my nose.

"Why would you want that?" he asked, his tone betraying an innocence that belied his beauty.

"So I'll know that I'm alive."

He seemed both aroused and repulsed and looked around to see whether anyone was watching before glancing toward the copse that I had indicated. Licking his lips, he observed the swell of my breasts, but when I took him by the hand my touch insulted him and he pulled away, calling me a whore, une putain, and broke into a run as he disappeared out onto rue Guynemer.

When the weather was good I wandered the streets from early morning, only returning to our lodgings when Mother would already be too drunk to ask how I had passed my time. The elegance that had defined her earlier life was beginning to fall away now but she was still a handsome woman and I wondered whether she might search for a new husband, someone who could take care of us. But it did not seem that she wanted companionship or love, preferring to be left alone with her thoughts as she made her way from bar to bar. She was a quiet drunk. She sat in darkened corners nursing bottles of wine, scratching at invisible marks upon wooden tabletops while making sure never to cause a scene that might see her exiled to the street. Once, our paths crossed as the sun disappeared over the Bois de Boulogne and she approached me unsteadily before taking my arm and asking me the time. She didn't appear to realize that it was her own daughter she was addressing. When I answered, she smiled in relief-it was growing dark, but the bars would remain open for hours yet-and she continued in the direction of the bright, seductive lights that dotted the Île. If I vanished entirely, I wondered, would she forget that I had ever existed? --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

John Boyne is the author of thirteen novels for adults, six for younger readers and a collection of short stories. His 2006 novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, was a #1 New York Times bestsellerwith more than 11 million copies sold worldwide, and has been adapted for cinema, theatre, ballet and opera. His many international bestsellers include The Heart's Invisible Furies and A Ladder to the Sky. He has won three Irish Book Awards, along with a host of other international literary prizes. His novels are published in more than fifty languages. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.

--This text refers to the library edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0B14GBSYH
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pamela Dorman Books (November 29, 2022)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 29, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4465 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 399 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0593653440

Best Sellers Rank: #3,105 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #15 in World War II Historical Fiction (Books)
- #18 in Historical World War II Fiction
- #30 in Historical Literary Fiction

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John Boyne was born in Ireland in 1971. The winner of four Irish Book Awards, including Author of the Year, he is the author of fourteen novels for adults, six for younger readers and a collection of short stories. The international bestseller The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was made into a Miramax feature film and has sold more than eleven million copies worldwide. His novels are published in 58 languages. He lives in Dublin. www.johnboyne.com.

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M. Waters

Amazing, complex multi-layered story

Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2024

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This book was full of surprises and twists in the plot. It is well-written, complex and has well-developed characters. Definitely a 5 star rating for me.

3 people found this helpful

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Debbie

Disturbing and riveting

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2023

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I just finished All The Broken Places by John Boyne. If a book can be disturbing and riveting all at the same time, it would describe this piece of historical fiction perfectly. This novel is the continuation of the story, The Boy in The Striped Pajamas. However, it primarily centers on Bruno's sister Gretel, and gives details of what happened to her and her family after the war. Like other historical fiction novels, this too alternated between past and present, a clever way to entice the reader to keep turning pages.
I don't want to give too much away in regards to the plot, but what I will say is I had great difficulty liking the main character Gretel, a sign she was well written. At times I had to walk away from the novel because Gretel made me angry and my head spun. She was often self-absorbed and in great denial of the horrors the Nazi Party had created, and then just as quickly would be overcome with guilt and fear of others finding out about her, or her family's past. As the years go by, Gretel matures and appears to accept her family's guilt, while attempting to put the past behind her. But all dark secrets have a way of catching up as she will find in the most unpleasant way.
All The Broken Places is very well written, as all John Boyne books tend to be. There are twists and turns in the story that I never anticipated and the ending was a bit of a shock, although I should have seen it coming. This novel was a great way to both continue and end the story of The Boy in The Striped Pajamas.

22 people found this helpful

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Linda H

Good book, a few caviats

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2024

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This is an enjoyable story, fast paced, and well-constructed. I found interesting, Gretel's journey, the plumbing of her psyche, examining her own involvement and personal guilt concerning her years in Germany as a young adult. Readers will not be disappointed. However, certain elements in the story seemed contrived, and were lacking in credibility. I won't reveal details, due to spoilers, but I sincerely doubt that some events taking place in her life could have happened exactly as told. That is my main criticism, but otherwise I found this a book worth reading

2 people found this helpful

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Lynne

Compelling and Unique

Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2024

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I can't say enough about this unusual exploration of the horrors of the Holocaust. Because it is much more than a condemnation of this tragic period of history. I can't recall a heroine at the center of a novel who is in her 90's; can you? This is a page turner. Complex yet quickly read. Explores Germany, France, Australia ending in London for main story lines. It is a sequel to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, but I cheated and streamed the movie. This gave me an imaginative view of Gretel's family that I would recommend.

4 people found this helpful

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Teresa

A Masterpiece

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2024

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𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻 𝗕𝗼𝘆𝗻𝗲’𝘀 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗰𝗲!⁣
⁣
One of the best books I have read, just as amazing as his The Boy in the Striped Pajamas! I haven’t read a John Boyne book that I haven’t absolutely loved, his writing is just truly genius!⁣
⁣
Boyne’s main character, 90 year old Gretel Fernsby is so complex and her story really takes a deep dive into survivor’s guilt and the complicity of so many during the Holocaust. This is by no means a “light” book but it will suck you in! ⁣
Gretel has a dark secret from her childhood that she spends her whole life trying to run from, even going as far as to never tell her own son. She is so full of flaws and inconsistencies, she reads as just so…real! ⁣
If you read only 1 book about the aftermath of WWII on people’s psyche, this book is it! The emotional impact this book had on me I have no words! ⁣

9 people found this helpful

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Mark Crawford

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2024

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A story of redemption that is riveting poignant and gripping in its portrayal of the human psyche and what it is to be human. Awesome read!

Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2024

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I thought this book to be an interesting read. I enjoy historical fiction, so this novel reads well in that regard. But it stretches the imagination to think that Gretel’s mother, a German trying to hide her German nationality, would go to Paris with her 15 year old daughter after the war. It’s not logical! Perhaps, if they had gone to Switzerland or Sweden or another country that had been neutral during that period it might make sense. But really, you have to suspend belief to think she would have gone to Paris.

Then, I find it hard to believe that Gretel had so much guilt. She was a child/teen when the events happened. She lived in a controlling environment and had been essentially brainwashed from an early age. It was like being in a cult. She knew right from wrong in the context of which she had grown up. This is not to absolve her of all actions, but really the guilt seems overdone considering the lack of control she had over anything. A psychologist could best speak to this, but we do know that a persons brain is often not fully developed until their late to mid- twenties. The heavy guilt about the war did not ring true. Maybe she would have some about her brother, but the rest just seemed a contrived story line. Perhaps if she had been in her late teens this overwhelming guilt trip might make sense.

Also, the fact that Gretel did not realize that David was so obviously Jewish given his surname and her background does not ring true. Again, have to suspend belief and go with the storyline

I have not read The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, so perhaps that would have given greater context to this novel. I found the storyline regarding Heidi and her concern for Henry much more believable and realistic. Although, in some ways I question how likely it was that she and her husband would ended up living in the same building as her daughter that she had given up at birth.

Overall, an enjoyable story as long as you don’t think logically about certain aspects of the novel.

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ceeser

fantastic!

Reviewed in Canada on May 1, 2024

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I loved this book so much. I’ll not be able to stop thinking of it the events in it any time soon.

RLS

Te atrapa

Reviewed in Mexico on November 27, 2023

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Es una novela muy bien manejada y que te invita a leerla sin soltarla. Gran manejo de los sentimientos y la mente.

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C

Love it!

Reviewed in Spain on February 18, 2024

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Abhijeet

Poignant and thought provoking

Reviewed in India on August 12, 2023

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Brilliantly written book about a subject that is not explored much, the war from the perspective of those who were children then. The writing style is very engrossing and it’s a difficult book to put down.

Lise Ledet

Unputdownable

Reviewed in Germany on August 8, 2023

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A gripping story right from the start, you just won’t be able to put it down. Read “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas” first.

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