The Hiding Room

by Jonathan Wilson

Book Overview

Part political thriller, part poignant love story, The Hiding Room recounts the passionate, tortured affair between Esta Weiss, a Jewish refugee living in Cairo, and Archie Rawlins, a British... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670856037
• ISBN13: 9780670856039
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: Viking
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Realistic Characters

I read this book when it first came out because it was written by the head of the Tufts English department. I reread it this semester in my Modern Jewish Authors class (taught by a visiting professor from BU). In class, I was struck by how many of us were viscerally affected by the characters in this book. Practically no one was a "nice" character, someone we could admire and trust, etc. But each character was very important to us. The people in this book were vividly described, animated by their actions. They were REAL. None of them were pretty, but they all had a profound effect on us. The narrator, Daniel Weiss, is exploring his parents' lives after the death of his mother, Esta. He never knew his father, and is curious as to what happened. Each truth as it is reveals both shocks and frightens the reader. Esta, a refugee fleeing from Hitler's camps, met Archie Rawlins and tried to relate the Jews' experiences to British intelligence. Authorities were determined to silence her, and anyone who believed her story. What started out as a relatively simple communication between two humans became a tempestuous affair, and no one emerged unscathed.