Address Unknown
A Novel
by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor
introduction by Margot Livesey
A rediscovered classic and international bestseller that recounts the gripping tale of a friendship destroyed at the hands of Nazi Germany
In this searing novel, Kathrine Kressmann Taylor brings vividly to life the insidious spread of Nazism through a series of letters between Max, a Jewish art dealer in San Francisco, and Martin, his friend and former business partner who has returned to Germany in 1932, just as Hitler is coming to power.
Originally published in Story magazine in 1938, Address Unknown became an international sensation. Credited with exposing the dangers of Nazism to American readers early on, it is also a scathing indictment of fascist movements around the world and a harrowing exposé of the power of the pen as a weapon.
A powerful and eloquent tale about the consequences of a friendship—and society—poisoned by extremism, Address Unknown remains hauntingly and painfully relevant today.
close this panel“This modern story is perfection itself. It is the most effective indictment of Nazism to appear in fiction.”
“A short story with a long, dark echo; fierce, clever, and timely in today’s world.”
“Captivating, beautiful and unimaginably powerful, a book for our times.”
“A tale already known and profoundly appreciated by members of my generation. It is to our part in World War II what Uncle Tom’s Cabin was to the Civil War.”
“What must be emphasized here is that this is no merely sound journalistic piece. It is a great story regardless of time or place or immediate circumstances. It is a great story because it contains all the elements of storytelling that have gone to make great stories from time immemorial.”
“This stunning classic brilliantly defines what happens when people are swept up in a poisonous ideology.”
“That this short, fleeting story has lasted so long is not only because of its artistic achievement, and not only because, written in 1938, it astonishingly anticipated the horror that was yet to come. It is because its prescience is not confined to its time. It saw into our own future too.”
"[An] astounding work. . . . One aspect of a story's greatness is its ability to speak to readers of different ages. So it is with Address Unknown. . . . I'm hopeful . . . it will reclaim its place on [the] American bookshelf."
“Address Unknown will leave you breathless with admiration.”
“Address Unknown serves not only as a reminder of Nazi horrors but as a cautionary tale in light of current racial, ethnic, and nationalistic intolerance.”
“A tremendously powerful piece of work, with a wallop at the end of the kind that Poe, Maupassant, Ibanez, Bierce and O. Henry made famous in their time.”
“Remarkably, despite the multitude of testimony and first-person accounts of life under Nazism with which we’ve been deluged since its first publication, this old, slim fiction manages to smuggle us across time and space into one eloquent tale of perfidy.”
“Simple, warm, human and tremendously touching. It will take hold of both head and heart.”
