Crooked Cross

De: Sally Carson

Narrado por: Stephanie Racine

"Sally Carson’s prescient novel offers an unflinching look at the early days of Nazism, resonating with today’s fears of lost boys, strong men and old hatreds... A remarkable novel: chilling, compelling, contained..." The Times

"...warrants a permanent place in the growing canon of World War Two literature." Clare McHugh, BBC Culture

It is Christmas Eve 1932, and the Kluger family are celebrating at home. Their only daughter Lexa is excited about her upcoming summer wedding to Moritz Weissmann, a promising young doctor.

Lexa has many admirers, but her heart belongs to Moritz, who is initially welcomed by her parents and two brothers, Helmy and Erich. As the year progresses, Lexa enjoys skiing, swimming and going to parties with Moritz and her friends. But little by little Moritz is excluded from the pool, the library, and eventually his own home.

As support for the Nazi Party grows rapidly across the country, Lexa’s own brothers, now fervent members of the Nazi Youth, turn against Moritz. Under immense pressure and desperate to be together, Lexa and Moritz have to meet in secret.

By midsummer, the once close-knit Kluger family are now fractured by irreconcilable beliefs and differing loyalties. When legislation strips the town’s Jewish citizens of their rights and their livelihoods, Lexa remains steadfast in her determination to stay true to Moritz.

Crooked Cross is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. This novel was first published in 1934.

©1934 Sally Carson (P)2025 Macmillan Publishers International Limited

Reseñas de la Crítica

“…warrants a permanent place in the growing canon of World War Two literature.” (Clare McHugh)

“Perhaps one of the most important books Persephone has ever reissued.... Astonishingly readable, a family saga with a propulsive terrible energy to it and I have raced through it the last two days... I so recommend this book to everyone.” (Harriet Evans, novelist)

So many levels

This book can be considered from a number of literary & sociological angles and simultaneously is quite straightforward in expressing the intimate human response to being caught in world events and movements. The author shows keen insight into how broad world events feel, or numb, on the ground level. The vocal performance is tremendous… wonderful emotion and realness.

A different perspective from what happened in 1930s Germany.

This is such a fascinating book about what was happening before the war and the Holocaust. This is a very interesting perspective on the quality of the imagination of the German people and in what happened to the people before the war and holocaust.

Part of the Family

An inside view of a family during a tremulous time.
Families are a delicate balance between the members and the surrounding community