The Safe House by Christophe Boltanski, 2015

A quasi-factual family history of an eccentric, polio-stricken grandmother who’s a writer and a mild, Jewish grandfather who’s a gastroenterolgist. The story’s organized around a room-by-room description of the couple’s home in a Parisian mansion, and non-linearly jumps around the century from the 1870s to the 1970s. The plot is twisty, covering both the Boltanski family history and how the history was gathered. The story hinges on the early 1940s, and once the name “Anne Frank” drifts by in an early chapter, expectations in that direction are set. The grandmother motivates the story. She’s both a black hole and a tent pole for her family, usurping them to compensate for polio, which she otherwise refuses to acknowledge, and directing their dealings with the outside world (she recognizes that her husband’s latest summons to the police station is likely to be disastrous, and sets off his disappearance).

Adding temporal and spatial shenanigans the usual immigrant-story vagaries (forgetfulness, mendacity both fearful and face-saving, indifferent record keeping) produces a complex story, one that most likely requires at least two readings to appreciate fully. Fortunately the story is short (around 200 generously spaced pages) and the writing (in translation from the French by Laura Marris) is pleasure to read.