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Bach to the future
PAUL SIMON recommends a novel with subtle variations on the impact of the Holocaust, then and now

J SS Bach
by Martin Goodman
(Wrecking Ball Press, £14)

J SS Bach starts tragically and, seemingly, tangentially.

It is 1962 and Katja Birchendorf rescues her pregnant daughter Uwe from her squalid flat in Sydney. But Uwe has a death wish, having discovered earlier that her late father Dieter was the adjutant at a concentration camp and is so physically weak that she dies giving birth to daughter Rosa.

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