cover image The Caretakers

The Caretakers

Bernard Mathias, Mathias Bernard. Penguin Books, $7.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-14-010839-2

Winner of both the Prix Hermes and the Prix Bonardi in France, this lyric first novel focuses on Daniel, the child of Holocaust survivors whose suffocating milieu is steeped in religious ritual and parental nightmares. ``This moving, first-person narrative resonates with Daniel's vitality and his struggle to find his proper place,'' wrote PW. (Dec.)