Dear friends, family, colleagues, those of you whose emails I have and who I think/hope might be interested —
My book, PLUNDER, will be published on March 16, so very soon. If we haven’t been in touch in a while: PLUNDER is about my attempt to reclaim family property in Poland, plus the discovery of an unknown relative who turns out to be—on account of a secret diary he wrote while working as a slave laborer on giant underground Nazi complexes—a big, big deal among Silesian treasure hunters. It’s nonfiction. People have been saying nice things:
"A saga of family history and inheritance that reads like a murder mystery, Plunder begins with Menachem Kaiser’s journey to reclaim a Polish apartment building but immediately becomes something far richer and stranger. Probing with unusual insight and humor into questions of memory, loss, and what we owe to the past, this impossible-to-put-down book — part travelogue, part memoir, part meditation on all that history hides from us — marks the debut of a major writer.”—Ruth Franklin, author of NBCC Award-winning Shirley Jackson: A Rather HauntedLife
"Exceptionally well written, this candid and suspenseful work recasts the injunction that one generation of survivors demands of all descendants, never to forget. Plunder is a magnificent and stunning literary debut.”—André Aciman, author of Find Me and Call Me by Your Name
"Menachem Kaiser is a young writer and storyteller of stunning talent, originality, and wisdom, and his debut book is gloriously impossible to categorize — by turns hilarious and profound, digressive and suspenseful, intimate and sweeping, it stands as an enviable accomplishment.”—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful
And here’s a starred review from Kirkus.
Please buy! It’s available on Amazon, Bookshop, all the other places you’re used to buying books from.
I have quite a few book events coming up, if maybe that’s of interest . Nothing in-person, of course, but nonetheless I’ll organize it by cities. More are being added; subscribe (or don’t unsubscribe?; I apologize for the spam, truly) for more info. I’ll also list them on my website, mnchm.com
March 13, Seattle, 8pm PST / 11pm EST: w/ Gilah Kletenik. Here’s the Zoom link.
March 17, Toronto, 7pm EST: w/ Professor Doris Bergen, hosted by the Kiever Synagogue. Register here.
March 25, New York, 7pm EST, Museum of Jewish Heritage, w/ Stephanie Butnick. More info here.
Please be in touch if you’re interested in hosting a book talk, or would like to organize a book club — there’s excellent book club material I can send you. I’m also putting together an educational packet, so if you are a teacher or know a teacher who’s interested in Holocaust programming, be in touch.
Again, I really appreciate your support. Pre-orders matter, more than you might be aware.
And apologies, again, for spamming.
-Menachem