Buy Book "The Book of Baltimore" in Ukrainian

The first book I read by this Swiss writer was The Truth About the Harry Quebert Case. And I really, really liked it. This book is completely different, not as dynamic, it is impossible to “swallow” it, but you have to “savor” it, delve into every word and detail, because then it fits together like a puzzle piece into a complete picture.

So what is it about?

This is a story about three generations of the main character’s family, the writer Marcus Goldman.

It is a story about the relationships between adults and adults, adults and children, teenagers and each other, and about the relationships between lovers. It is a family story that lasts a lifetime. The small and not so small family secrets that emerge with each new chapter prove a simple human truth: another person’s family is a dark forest, and what we can see from the outside is not the same as what may be inside.

And a very important quote:

“Many of us are trying to find meaning in life, but our lives have meaning only when they fulfill three tasks: to love, to be loved, and to forgive. The rest is just wasted time.”

To summarize, this is a family saga, a story about the lives of three generations of Goldmans, from the elderly grandparents to the young, though already quite mature, grandchildren. Old Max Goldman had two sons, Saul and Nathan. The plan was that both men would stay on to work for the family business, but life made its own adjustments – the children moved away, started their own families, and had children of their own. This is how the Goldmans were divided into the Montclair Goldmans, ordinary and ordinary, and the Baltimore Goldmans, influential and with millions of dollars in assets. But even though the adults went their separate ways, their children, cousins Hillel and Marcus, remained united in an unusually strong friendship. Later, the two boys were joined by a third, their age, Woody, who was taken under the care of the influential and wealthy Baltimore Goldman family. From that time on, the era of the Goldman Gang began for the children, who could not imagine their lives without each other. But over the years, the children’s dreams faded, and the friendship was destroyed by feelings of envy and jealousy…

And only with age, as all the family secrets began to be revealed to the protagonist, he was able to realize that not everything is as good as it seems in childhood… And maybe, in fact, there is no reason to be jealous of his more successful brother…