|
|
Finalist for the PEN America Award for First Nonfiction |
| "The liveliest,
most unusual travel tale in recent memory." |
|
|
| "A quirky
and entertaining debut book that seamlessly blends
travelogue with memoir and humor with sadness." |
|
|
|
"In this wonderful book, Sam Apple has written
a brilliantly comic and very dark pastorale about
shepherds, Nazis, and Jews, modern-day Austria,
love and fidelity, and he has done it with such
subtlety - with bright colors at the center and
darkness around all the edges - that the effect
is quite singular. I have never read a book quite
like this, and I loved it; it's that simple."
|
|
|
| "This
marvelously alert, one-of-a-kind book fascinates by
virtue of its eccentric honesty, humor, warmth and
intelligence. Sam Apple's writing style sparkles,
and the two brilliantly achieved, richly sympathetic
characterizations at the heart of the book-the singing
shepherd and the author himself-make for a dazzlingly
satisfying read. I absolutely loved it." |
|
|
| "At
its best, Apple's narrative voice is as grave as WG
Sebald's while as self-deprecating as a poetic version
of Woody Allen's. Europe in the wake of the Holocaust
is risky material. I know of no other American of
Apple's generation writing non-fiction who has attempted
as subtle and oblique an approach as this." |
|
|
|
"[A] rtful, amusing, yet also serious. You
will be hard-pressed to find a better read."
|
|
|
|
"I don't know whether Sam Apple, a young Jewish
writer living in New York, meant to write a travelogue,
a wryly comic memoir on being Jewish, an examination
of modern Austria's continuing anti-Semitism, or
a reflection on a strange but wonderful friendship.
...
But the saving grace of Schlepping Through the Alps
is that he's succeeded on all counts."
|
|
|
|
"A funny book making serious points."
|
|
|
|
........................................................................................................
|
|
|
|
Hans Breuer, Austria's only wandering shepherd,
is also a Yiddish folksinger. He walks the Alps,
shepherd's stick in hand, singing lullabies to his
625 sheep. Sometimes he even gives concerts in historically
anti-Semitic towns, showing slides of the flock
as he belts out Yiddish ditties. Born in 1954, Breuer
spent his childhood in Vienna fighting the lingering
Nazism in Austrian society. His performances are
an attempt to educate his fellow citizens on the
people their parents and grandparents had helped
to wipe out of Europe.
When New York-based writer, Sam Apple, hears about
this off-the-wall eccentric, he flies overseas and
signs on as a shepherd's apprentice. Demonstrating
no immediate natural talent for shepherding, Apple
does his best to earn the respect of Breuer's sheep,
while keeping a safe distance from the fierce herding
dogs.
As this strange and hilarious adventure unfolds,
Apple is determined to find out why Breuer has chosen
to become a folk-singing shepherd and to see if
there are really as many anti-Semites in Austria
as he fears. What Apple discovers turns out to be
far more fascinating and moving than he had imagined.
With this odd and wonderful book, Sam Apple joins
the august tradition of Tony Horwitz and Bill Bryson.
|
|
|
|
