Keeper of Lost Children

The assured latest from Johnson (The House of Eve) links the stories of three Black Americans in Europe and the U.S. after WWII. It begins in 1965 Maryland, where Black teenager Sophia Clark escapes the drudgery of farm work after receiving a scholarship to an elite boarding school. She bonds with classmate Max, a Black boy who was adopted from a German orphanage, and she wonders why “something stirred inside her” when he speaks in German. Meanwhile, in 1950s Germany, Ethel Gathers, whose husband is serving in the Army, adopts from a local orphanage multiple mixed-race children who were born to American GIs stationed in Germany and works to find homes in the U.S. for the orphanage’s other mixed-race children. The third story line takes place in 1948 Mannheim, Germany, where Ozzie Philips, a soldier from Philadelphia, has an affair with Jelka, a white German woman who becomes pregnant with his child. He and Jelka bond over love for their child until he’s stationed elsewhere following the Army’s desegregation. Johnson expertly weaves the narrative threads together, not only through the characters’ shared experiences with racism but also through their individual connections to the German orphanage. The resulting tale offers an immersive view into an overlooked legacy of WWII. Agent: Cherise Fisher, Wendy Sherman Assoc. (Feb.)