The Assault (Harry Mulisch)

This is a powerful story of one small horror from WWII that destroyed a Dutch family and the ways it affected the one of them the rest of his life. One of the hated Nazi collaborators in a small town is shot to death on the street. His body initially fell in front of one house, and then the people living there drag it in front of their neighbor's house. As the neighbors debate what to do, and the hotheaded older son decides to go out and move the body again to protect the family, the Nazi police show up. They pull the family out of the house and set it afire. The younger son is only 12 at the time, and he is taken by the Germans to a prison cell, then turned over to his uncle in Amsterdam to live out the rest of the war. He puts the events of that night out of his mind, and only gradually over the years pieces together what really happened. As moving and affecting as the story is, it didn't grab me. Because the main character works so hard to wall off his feelings for his family's catastrophe, the book felt distant. I was unable to get inside him and feel anything much for his struggle, because he didn't allow himself to feel anything much himself. Thus I was disappointed, and can't give the book the wholehearted endorsement I otherwise would.