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A Hidden Life: A Memoir of August 1969 Hardcover – January 1, 2009

by Johanna Reiss (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
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For years, Johanna Reiss’ American husband, Jim, encouraged her to return to Holland to chronicle the two years, seven months, and one day she had spent hiding from the Nazis in rural Usselo, Holland. In 1969, she finally made the trip.

Accompanied by Jim and their two young children, Reiss intended to spend seven weeks researching the book that would eventually become The Upstairs Room, her Newbery Honor–winning account of her time hiding in the attic of a farmhouse in which for a time a contingent of Nazi soldiers was billeted.

But unknown to the millions of people who went on to read her beloved classic, behind the dark and painful story of the book was a still darker tale: Reiss’ husband returned to America early and committed suicide at age thirty-seven, leaving no note.

For Reiss, an ongoing reckoning with universal tragedy becomes particular: she is forced to reckon, too, with Jim’s death—and explain it to her children. Subtle and disturbing, the book is a powerful consideration of memory, violence, and loss, told in a stunning and sparse narrative style.

Johanna Reiss is the author of the classic young adult title The Upstairs Room, which Elie Wiesel praised in The New York Times Book Review as an “admirable account . . . as important in every respect as the one bequeathed to us by Anne Frank.” She is the winner of the Newbery Honor, the Jewish Book Council Children’s Book Award, and the Buxtehuder Bulle. She lives in New York City.

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  1. Print length
    250 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Melville House
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    5.76 x 0.81 x 7.9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781933633558
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1933633558
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Reiss and one of her sisters were hidden during WWII with a family of Dutch farmers, and at the urging of her husband, Jim, an American Jew, she returned to Holland with her daughters in the summer of 1969 to steep herself in the war she had survived. The trip resulted in her 1972 bestselling memoir, the Newbery Honor book The Upstairs Room. Jim, too, visited Holland and met the people who had sheltered his wife, only to return to New York before his wife and daughter, and commit suicide at the age of 37. As Reiss wrestles with the notion that life is one continuous good-bye, where loved ones can just vanish, she weaves together memories of her uneasy postwar relationship with her saviors, uneducated, often slovenly peasants who repeatedly boasted about their heroics; of Jim's tortuous relationship with a mentally unbalanced mother who conceived him to save a failing marriage. This is a ruminative, plaintive cry by a Holocaust survivor who wonders if her own childhood anguish desensitized her to her spouse's suffering. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

"Like so many Holocaust survivors, Reiss was emotionally crippled. Then another darkness fell... [a] searing journey."
—Leslie Garis, The New York Times Book Review

"A beautifully-written memoir … one of the most moving books I have read."
—Lucy Kavaler, author of The Astors: A Family Chronicle of Pomp and Power

"A state of memory, a day-to-day account of the limbo one is left with when one's life is snatched away.... Reiss is again seeking and questioning a larger force."
—Lizzie Skurnick, Chicago Tribune (front page)

"A Hidden Life is a compelling and chilling memoir about the tragic, far-reaching effects of world history on personal history. Writing in the sparest and most self-effacing prose, Joanna Reiss manages to break the reader's heart."
—Hilma Wolitzer, author of Summer Reading and Hearts

"In A Hidden Life, Johanna Reiss weaves two great misfortunes into a brave and beautiful story. As we read, we rush back and forth between 1940s occupied Holland and 1960s New York, searching for the pieces of the puzzle that might lay bare her husband's—and her own—story. This book brims with courage and compassion. It will make you want to hold your own family closer."
—Kristen den Hartog, co-author of The Occupied Garden

"Johanna Reiss wrote one memoir, then discovered another hidden underneath.... A Hidden Life is that second story, moving between 1940s Holland and 1960s New York City. 'How do you tell children,' she thinks, 'that life is one continuous goodbye, that with each day the end comes a little nearer . . .; how do you explain that people you're close to, or thought you were, can just vanish?'"
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times

“[A Hidden Life] explores memory, violence and survival—and how well we can ever really know another person. [Johanna’s] story is so sad, her hurt so palpable, it will take your breath away.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

"As compelling and readable as a traditional mystery..."
—Jewish Exponent

"...beautifully expressed attempt to put life’s unruly events into order."
—Jewish Book World

"A touching and tragic story that is bound to impress."
— Dizzie.nl

"Gripping"
—Algemeen Dagblad

"A Hidden Life shows that working through traumas can lead to a moving literary work."
—Quinta

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1933633557
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Melville House; 1st edition (January 1, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 250 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781933633558
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1933633558
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.76 x 0.81 x 7.9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 15 ratings

About the author

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Johanna Reiss

Johanna Reiss

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JOHANNA REISS is the author of the classic young adult book "The Upstairs Room," which Elie Wiesel praised in The New York Times Book Review as an "admirable account . . . as important in every respect as the one bequeathed to us by Anne Frank." She is the winner of the Newbery Honor, the Jewish Book Council Children's Book Award, School Library Journal Best Book, and the Buxtehuder Bulle (Outstanding Children's Book Promoting Peace, Germany). She is also the author of the sequel, "The Journey Back," and a memoir for adults called "A Hidden Life." She lives in New York City.

Author website: johannareiss.com

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
15 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars This completes and explains so many of the subtle undercurrents ...
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2018
Verified Purchase
This completes and explains so many of the subtle undercurrents in The Upstairs Room and the Journey Back. I'm now rereading the first with my children and can see so much more clearly what she only hinted at in the books for children. I hope she does eventually write the books that go into her relationship with her sisters more.
Maybe because I've read the Upstairs Room and Journey back so many times, but the movement across time didn't bother me as much as it did other readers. It made sense and I was able to follow her thoughts.
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Linzabee
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2018
Verified Purchase
A great book that puts more flesh on the child memoirs Johanna Reiss wrote.
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Kindle Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars Not as advertised or reviewed
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2019
Verified Purchase
I did not like the way this was written. I thought it was fractured and mired in unimportant details of surrounding events not relevant to the story. Could not finish it. Very disappointing.
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13 Is the New 18 author
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written, dark but compelling
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2009
Some years ago I read the book this author, Johanna Reiss, wrote for children called "The Upstairs Room." It is a famous book, and deservedly so - some call it the Anne Frank story with the happy ending, for the author was a hidden child in Holland during the Holocaust. She and her sister were Jews, concealed by simple farmers for three years. "The Upstairs Room" ends with a jubilant scene of liberation by the U.S. Army. The girls can run free again, in the sunlight, with no fear, and the farmers who saved them are brave, kind and heroic. ... But of course real life is far more complicated, right? In a children's book, the author would not reveal all the nuances of what happened, how she felt about it,and what became of her. But in her new book, "A Hidden Life," we learn that the carefree future suggested by the happy ending in "The Upstairs Room" was not to be for Johanna Reiss. She moved to America as an adult and married an American Jew. At his urging, she returned to Holland with their two young daughters on a vacation to do research for the book. While she was in her homeland, her husband, back home in New York, killed himself. This horrifying situation is revealed almost immediately in "A Hidden Life," so I don't feel that I'm giving much away by revealing it here. The book is utterly compelling despite the early denouement; you are right there emotionally with the author as she stumbles, in shock, tries to make sense of it, revisits scenes from her youth in the upstairs room and her courtship in America, and as she looks for clues that might explain what caused her husband to take his life. This is a dark book, no doubt about it; not for children. But I couldn't put it down. I found myself reading it 1 a.m., and nearly missing my stop on the train because I couldn't take my eye off the page. The writing is beautiful and eloquent; it has a poetry and an unconventional sensibility that I attribute to the fact that the writer is not a native speaker of English. She chooses her words in ways that make every sentence important and unusual; her cadence and word choice cannot be anticipated, they can only be experienced. From her very first sentence to her very last, the writing is pitch-perfect, and the story - of survival, grief, guilt and of trying to make sense of the random tragedies life sometimes hands us - is unforgettable.
13 people found this helpful
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Maureen R. Tagliaferro
3.0 out of 5 stars A Cathartic Journey
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book was a difficult read; not for its tragic subject, but for the constant shifting from the past to present and endless rambling of thoughts. It is supposed to be a memoir of August 1969, yet it is a reflection of all the author's thoughts during the days following her husband's suicide. Reiss's cathartic journey takes us back to her days of hiding in a rural Dutch farmhouse during the Holocaust, as detailed in her earlier publication The Upstairs Room, and it compares her former and literal hidden life to that of her husband's hidden pain. In doing so, Reiss can make readers wonder about the dark side of their own inner selves.

In this respect, Reiss's reflective style is very effective, as it is painfully honest and real. When someone we love dies, a multitude of thoughts can run through our heads, as if we are rewinding a video of someone's life while being interrupted by brief jolts of current reality. In this case, the film Reiss unraveled failed to provide a conclusion, as suicide often leads us to more questions than answers. Yet this story is a sure reminder that our past is part of our present, and while we can move on, we can never make a complete separation.

My concern with this memoir is that I don't think it would have been as impactful without first reading The Upstairs Room. For me, if I had not read the prior book, characters like Sini and Johan would have seemed like names in passing rather than people I felt I knew. So for many, the book can fail to make a connection to the author, much less her mysterious and troubled husband. However, for those who read The Upstairs Room, the book reveals more about the author's past, including the mention of her brother who died, her parents' strained relationship, and her father's frequent absences. In moving forward, it takes Reiss's life full circle by adding to the tragedy, but also the hope.
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Sheila Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling memoir
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2009
A Hidden Life is no ordinary memoir. It is a profoundly honest
account of Johanna Reiss's husband's suicide. A senseless act
without explanation. No Note.
Johann Reiss recounts her painful experience in a beautifully
poetic stream of consciousness style.
Even though Jim's death is revealed in the beginning of the
book, I still felt compelled to find out what happens at the end.
The writing has a certain eccentricity that at times amuses as
well as evokes sadness.
Accolades to Ms. Reiss for writing a most compelling memoir.
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