How well do we ever know our parents? Every parent keeps secrets from children to protect them from pain, sadness or past family horrors. And then our parents are gone, just as we begin to wonder about their lives. In The Visible World, Slouka's American protagonist pulls together the strands of his parents' past in WW II Czechoslovakia where his mother had loved another man, a Czech Resistence fighter responsible for the death of Hitler's annointed successor. Where she had set aside her promises to his father when the thunderbolt of love hit her. Where his father had waited patiently for her and eventually welcomed her back, shattered and never quite the same again.

In this stunning book, both the childhood point of view and then the young adult search are poignant and compelling, the forests of Eastern Europe eerie and the Nazi presence heavy and foreboding. It will leave you in tears. Speak to your parents now.