A Place Not Home

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

This autobiographical novel traces a traumatic year in the life of
13-year-old Nellie Adler and her Jewish Hungarian family. The story
begins in October 1956, when the Russians invade Hungary and
anti-Semitism erupts once again; the Adlers, along with thousands of
other Jewish families, flee to Austria. Nellie must leave her friends,
her clothes, her books, her cozy home, and everything else behind.

Eva Wiseman vividly re-creates the trials of a harrowing escape to
freedom, an immigrant voyage from Genoa to Halifax, and the Adlers’
harsh early months in Montreal as “displaced persons” as Nellie and
her family slowly move toward a new sense of “home.” While humor
balances tragic realities, details bring events to life.

A Place Not Home, Wiseman’s first novel, should help young readers to
reject an irrational fear and dislike of those who seem different.
Recommended.