The Night Traveler

A Novel

By: Armando Lucas Correa

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Four generations of women experience love, loss, war, and hope from the rise of Nazism to the Cuban Revolution and finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall in this sweeping novel from the bestselling author of the “timely must-read” (People) The German Girl.

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety.

Havana, 1958: Now an adult, Lilith has few memories of her mother or her childhood in Germany. Besides, she’s too excited for her future with her beloved Martin, a Cuban pilot with strong ties to the Batista government. But as the flames of revolution ignite, Lilith and her newborn daughter, Nadine, find themselves at a terrifying crossroads.

Berlin, 1988: As a scientist in Berlin, Nadine is dedicated to ensuring the dignity of the remains of all those who were murdered by the Nazis. Yet she has spent her entire lifetime avoiding the truth about her own family’s history. It takes her daughter, Luna, to encourage Nadine to uncover the truth about the choices her mother and grandmother made to ensure the survival of their children. And it will fall to Luna to come to terms with a shocking betrayal that changes everything she thought she knew about her family’s past.

“A stunning multigenerational story” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), The Night Traveler reveals the power of self-discovery and motherly love.

©2023 emanaluC Production Corp. All rights reserved (P)2023 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Good but…

the story jumps back and forth in time sometimes making it a little hard to follow. An interesting story but too much information packed into too short a book. It might work better as a series with more developed characters.

Sad, Poignant, Uplifting

This wonderful novel covers many of the calmer emotional categories. The prose is often beautifully lyrical. But the plot development is sometimes a little slow.

Too many characters

This book gave me whiplash, time would jump ahead months and years, then look backwards. Also too many characters, double sets of parents, etc. Glad when it was over.

It was ok

Way too long and too much history and the story kept going back and forth and place to place that it was hard to follow.

Decent Writing- Historically Interesting- OK

Historically Interesting, but characters are only weakly developed for the genera. Also, plot is driven by the protagonist's poor choices in Lillith plot in a way that reduced credibility-- e.g. not leaving Cuba when it was obviously the best choice and was still feasible. Mostly it seemed like a bunch of brief synopses of events without a lot of details or dialog to make the reader care about the characters. It would be a great way for someone to get a sense of WWII historical atrocities if they were unfamiliar, but isn't overall a masterful piece of literature. It was both rushed and boring at the same time.

Brilliant

I rarely give a book 5 stars, I worry that I will read something better and have no better rating. This was something better. The author wove a web covering 75 years and four generations with great skill and historical accuracy. This one will be with me for a long time.

A Phenomenal Read

This was a phenomenal read. It pulled me in and I couldn’t put it down. I loved how the story weaved through generations of a family and how the war affected each.

Amazing

A wonderful sad story of loss and survival throughout decades and continents. All beautifully narrated.

5 Star

BY NIGHT WE’RE ALL THE SAME COLOR….
This book is about war, evil, love and sacrifice. It gives you a look at the past, hints of our present, and God forbid , ever, our future.

Unknown history bits

I enjoyed the story as it wasn’t an expected part of WWII and covered different events of different countries however it wasn’t as enjoyable to listen to because I didn’t like the narrator. Not even sure why it was a male narrator since most characters who spoke were female.