New Hardcover Non-Fiction

Francine Prose, in her new book Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife, asks us to reconsider the diary as a work of literature. It’s been relegated to school reading lists and reenactments of the play based on The Diary. It’s been translated into nearly every language, and people from all over the world visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  Yet most people still consider it the musings of a young girl without taking into account the way Anne grew and her writing improved over the course of their confinement. Particularly fascinating is Prose’s account of Anne’s revisions of the diary in the months before their capture. It’s also interesting the way the play and the movie made the story more palatable. And just as there are holocaust deniers, there are those that believe the diary was fabricated.

Moreover, the book has faced other challenges. In 1983, members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for its removal from school reading lists because it was "a real downer." If that’s the way you choose to see it, then I suppose it is. Obviously, being confined to a relatively small space with 7 other people for over 2 years would not be fun. However, this very young woman told her story with wisdom and humor that imbue her writing with so much life. When we realize that Anne would have been 80 had she lived, it makes us wonder what she might have accomplished had she survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. 

Prose's book caused me to go back and read The Diary. I'm pleased to say that I have been charmed by this young woman as she struggles with her mother, the frustrations she feels as she comes up against the expectations of the her family and others in the annex, the burgeoning love she feels for Peter, all against the worsening in situation in Amsterdam as they wait for liberation or capture. It's the charm, the humor and the prose that have made the story of Anne Frank continue to live, and it’s sad that those who felt the book "a downer" would deprive themselves and others from learning about the significance and beauty of this one life and those who lived with her.   - Deb Morris