Prosperous Thief (Goldsmith)

Summary
There are thieves who prosper. But are there thefts which can never be forgiven?

The Prosperous Thief covers the turbulent sweep of the twentieth century. Rich in ideas and emotions, it is an epic story of the entwined lives of two vastly different families spanning three continents.

Alice Lewin survived the war as a young child. After decades of burying her past she decides to visit the Kindertransport archive, where she learns of the existence of a possible relative, Henry Lewin. She travels to Australia to hear his story, but it's a story that she's in no way prepared to hear.

The truth has profound ramifications and both Alice's son, Raphe, and Henry's daughter, Laura, struggle to deal with their connected lives. But just as the thefts of the Second World War define their past, so deception threatens their future.

From the horrors of war to the fiery landscape of one of the world's most active volcanoes, this compelling novel generates its own unsettling shadows. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 24, 1950
• Where—Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
• Currently—lives in Melbourne

Andrea Goldsmith born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, was trained as a speech pathologist and spent several years working with children. From 1987, she has taught creative writing at Deakin University. The Prosperous Thief, short-listed for the 2003 Miles Franklin award, is Goldsmith's 5th novel. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
With the sensuous pace of a poet, she unravels an epic tale of two families, spanning the world of pre-war Berlin to late-20th century Melbourne, and counting the cost of the horror from both sides of the moral fence. It is a rare novel; endowed with intelligence and beauty. Canberra Times, Ian McFarlane 'this is a novel that seeks to provoke questions rather than provide answers; a novel about theft and appropriation in myriad disguises as much as it is an attempt to understand the Holocaust's dark shadow.
Bron Sibree - Brisbane Courier Mail (Australia)

An epic tale.... A rare novel; endowed with intelligence and beauty.
Canberra Times (Australia)

Goldsmith's gripping Holocaust epic begins with two German children: Heinrik Heck, born poor in 1910, and Alice Lewin, who is six when Kristallnacht shatters her elegant secular Jewish family. As an army deserter in 1945, Heinrick comes across Martin, a typhoid-stricken concentration camp survivor, and makes a desperate choice. "There's his own future to consider, he tells himself as he squats down and lays his hands one each side of Martin's head. He twists." Martin is Alice's father; Heinrik, having killed Martin, takes part of Martin's identity and reinvents himself as Henry Lewin, a Jew, and starts a new life in Australia. Alice, saved by the Kindertransport, lands in California, marries a non-Jew and erases the un-American lilt in her voice. But her son, Raphe, is obsessed with the Jewish grandfather with whom he shares a passion for volcanoes. His urging sends Alice to Australia, where she confronts Henry Lewin. Henry dies; Alice dies. Raphe, guardian of the truth, goes to Australia with such rage inside him, it seems he might murder Henry's daughter. Despite a melodramatic ending on the rim of a volcano and a few lapses in craft and language ("loathe" for "loath"), Australian Goldsmith's fifth novel has undeniable power.
Publishers Weekly

A riveting tale that takes on every piety about the Holocaust and holds it up to heartbreaking and unflinching scrutiny. It may technically be about the Holocaust, but at its heart, this is about what happens when a cataclysmic event has been too often narrated and too often dramatized on television and in films. Can an individual feel the burden of history? Should history be reduced to memory? At the center of this story is Henry, an impoverished, disenfranchised German thief, for whom the war is a godsend, and the Lewin family, cultured, educated and Jewish, and unlike Henry, unable to believe that Germany would turn its back on its most accomplished citizens. The German thief steals the identity of the Jewish family, and after the war, he builds a full, happy life in Australia—his son is an observant Jew, his daughter a worker for human rights. When members of the Lewin family come to Australia to confront the thief and his children, everyone is made to consider what good knowledge actually does in the world—how does knowing the truth of anyone's experience change one's own? Any account of the plot cannot give a sense of the story's beauty. Goldsmith's feeling for the subtleties and contradictions of individual characters evoke the stylized, layered sentences of Henry James, even Tolstoy. This is all compulsively readable, almost hypnotic in its ability to draw the reader in. A superbly crafted novel that's less interested in the historical events of the Holocaust than the ways in which the late-20th century inherited and struggled with its multiple legacies.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Prosperous Thief:

1. Heini does what he must to survive. Under such duress, how forgivable is his crime? Does the fact that he loves his wife and children—and saves them—absolve him of guilt? Is he a bad person?

2. Andrea Goldsmith has said in an interview that she sees Alice as the "fulcrum of the novel." In other words, the novel revolves around her character. Do you agree? If so, in what ways. Or do see another character as the fulcrum?

3. Goldsmith has also said that Heini is not the only thief in the novel. She points to Raphe, who appropriates his grandfather's life to fill the gaps in his own life. She also mentions Nell, a film maker, as a very modern "opportunistic thief." Do you agree with her assessments.

4. What do you make of Raphe's fascination with volcanoes? Metaphorically, volcanoes possess dangerous, undpredictable undercurrents, like like itself.

5. Talk about the irony of Laura's politics, championing the cause of oppressed people. Do her actions atone for her father's crimes—even without her full knowledge of what his sins were? Should Laura ever be told the truth? What do you make of Laura's brother, Daniel?

6. The Prosperous Thief contemplates philosophical yet deeply personal issues—all of which can make for excellent discussions: does the long arm of guilt extend from one generation to another? Is the modern concept of victimhood justified? Does the pursuit of revenge yield justice? How does the novel present those ideas—and how do you respond to them?

7. Some believe the novel falls a little flat when moving to modern times; in particular, the characters seem less well-developed or convincing. Do you agree or disagree?

8. Would you say the ending is happy or tragic? For whom?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page