"Sally Carson's prescient novel offers an unflinching look at the early days of Nazism, resonating with today's fears of lost boys, strong men and old hatreds... A remarkable novel: chilling, compelling, contained..." The Times
"...warrants a permanent place in the growing canon of World War Two literature." Clare McHugh, BBC Culture
It is Christmas Eve 1932, and the Kluger family are celebrating at home. Their only daughter Lexa is excited about her upcoming summer wedding to Moritz Weissmann, a promising young doctor.
Lexa has many admirers, but her heart belongs to Moritz, who is initially welcomed by her parents and two brothers, Helmy and Erich. As the year progresses, Lexa enjoys skiing, swimming and going to parties with Moritz and her friends. But little by little Moritz is excluded from the pool, the library, and eventually his own home.
As support for the Nazi Party grows rapidly across the country, Lexa's own brothers, now fervent members of the Nazi Youth, turn against Moritz. Under immense pressure and desperate to be together, Lexa and Moritz have to meet in secret.
By midsummer, the once close-knit Kluger family are now fractured by irreconcilable beliefs and differing loyalties. When legislation strips the town's Jewish citizens of their rights and their livelihoods, Lexa remains steadfast in her determination to stay true to Moritz.
Crooked Cross is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. This novel was first published in 1934. Sylvia Carson (1902-1941), known as Sally, was born in Dorset and spent her early life there. She had two sisters and the family was brought up by their widowed mother. Carson worked as a dance teacher and a publisher's reader. She regularly holidayed in Bavaria, where Crooked Cross is set. The book is the first in a trilogy, and was adapted for the stage, with performances in Birmingham (1935) and London (1937). In 1938 she married publisher Eric Humphries, and they had three children. She died aged 38 of breast cancer. Over six months in 1930s Germany an ordinary family witness the rapid rise of Nazism.
