1940

By: Jay Neugeboren

Narrated by: Jeff Woodman

Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Set on the eve of America's entry into World War Two, award-winning novelist Jay Neugeboren's first new novel in two decades is built around a fascinating historical figure, Dr. Eduard Bloch, an Austrian doctor who had been physician to Adolf Hitler and his family when Hitler was a boy and young man, and who cared for Hitler's mother during her illness and death from breast cancer.

The historical Bloch was the only Jew for whom Hitler ever personally arranged departure from Europe, and he must now, living in the Bronx, face accusations over the special treatment he received from the Nazi dictator.

1940 focuses on Dr. Bloch's relationship with Elizabeth Rofman, a medical illustrator at Johns Hopkins Medical School, who has come to New York from Baltimore to visit her father, only to find that he has, mysteriously, disappeared. The story grows more complex when Elizabeth's son, Daniel, a disturbed young adolescent, escapes from the institution in Maryland where his parents have committed him, and makes his way to New York, where he is hidden and protected by his mother...and by Dr. Bloch.

©2008 Jay Neugeboren (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Jay Neugeboren traverses the Hitlerian tightrope with all the skill and formal daring that have made him one of the most honored writers of literary fiction and masterful nonfiction. This new book is, at once, a beautifully realized work of imagined history, a rich and varied character study and a subtly layered novel of ideas, all wrapped in a propulsively readable story. (Los Angeles Times)

1940

This book had 3 separate stories running at the same time. All were interesting but only one had to do with the interesting topic of Hitler's physician. He was in New York writing his remembrance of the Hitler family. He meets a young lady who is a medical illustrator at John Hopkins how is drawing the hearts of the blue babies as the researcher are trying to find a cure. She has a mentally ill son and the books discuss the moral and legal issue of the time in this area. A good book but you need to stay on your toes.

ho hum

snooze