Book of the Month–November 2013
Schroder
By: Amity Gaige
Attending a New England summer camp, young Eric Schroder-a first-generation East German immigrant-adopts the last name Kennedy to more easily fit in, a fateful white lie that will set him on an improbable and ultimately tragic course.
Schroder relates the story of Eric’s urgent escape years later to Lake Champlain, Vermont, with his six-year-old daughter, Meadow, in an attempt to outrun the authorities amid a heated custody battle with his wife, who will soon discover that her husband is not who he says he is. From a correctional facility, Eric surveys the course of his life to understand-and maybe even explain-his behavior: the painful separation from his mother in childhood; a harrowing escape to America with his taciturn father; a romance that withered under a shadow of lies; and his proudest moments and greatest regrets as a flawed but loving father.
Alternately lovesick and ecstatic, Amity Gaige’s deftly imagined novel offers a profound meditation on history and fatherhood, and the many identities we take on in our lives–those we are born with and those we construct for ourselves.
Publisher Description
Also available as:
eAudiobook
eBook
Book Reviews
The Guardian
The National Post
New York Times
About the Author:
Amity Gaige was born in 1972 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Schroder is her third novel, inspired in part by the story of Christian Gerhartsreiter, who had created and used several false identities since immigrating to the United States as a teenager. Famously, he once claimed to be Clark Rockefeller, a member of the wealthy family. Following an acrimonious divorce, Gerhartsreiter abducted his daughter, travelling with her for 7 days before being apprehended and charged with kidnapping and assault. Gaige has said she was intrigued by reports that Gerhartsreiter was a devoted father who only wanted to extend his visit with his daughter.
Gaige is currently the visiting writer at Amherst College.
Author Interviews:
The New York Times
Slate
Read Alikes
If you liked Schroder, you may also enjoy:
Other Books by Amity Gaige:
The Folded World
Other Fiction:
Mosaic by Soheir Khashoggi
The Second Silence by Eileen Goudge
Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult
Non-Fiction
A Case for Soloman: Bobby Dunbar and the Kidnapping that Haunted a Nation by Tal McThenia
A Father’s Love: One Man’s Unrelenting Battle to Bring His Abducted Son Home by David Goldman
Flight of the Dragonfly: a Mother’s Epic Journey to Regain Her Kidnapped Daughters by Melissa Hawach
The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: the Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Imposter by Mark Seal
Comments