Restitution
Waterstones Quarterly Review
Alix seeks sanctuary in her deserted ancestral home, and is amazed to find her childhood sweetheart Gregor there. Two more fugitives arrive. By dawn they are dead and Gregor gone. As the Red Army advances, Alix flees. A story of courage and betrayal during the death throes of the Third Reich.
Historical Novels Review
In January 2006 Alix is tracked down by her birth son, Michael. He asks the question she has long dreaded: ‘who is my father?’ The answer is simple and yet so complicated—he was her most feared, most adored enemy. Rewind the clock to 1945, and Alix’s story begins with her flight from the Red onslaught which is brought harrowingly to life. Death and fear stalk the pages and her meeting with old sweetheart, Gregor, is fraught with mistrust and passion.
Rewind to 1939, and part-Jewish Gregor has his own story to tell—again confused by betrayal and fear—as he and his mother flee from Nazi aggression and try to find a place to call home.
Interspersed between Alix and Gregor’s stories are those of their parents and friends. But for Alix and Gregor, the truth behind their encounter in 1945—and the puzzles it created—will only be understood after the passage of sixty years.
At the heart of Restitution is the belief that corruption, hatred and fear cannot destroy love and hope, and that acts of kindness can take place even in the most appalling conditions. It is unusual to read a book written from the German point of view, showing many everyday Germans in a favourable light. It also focuses on the harsh treatment of German women by the Soviet army, a subject that many readers may not be familiar with. For all these reasons it is well worth reading, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. -- Sara Wilson
Sunday Business Post (Ireland) A tale of abandonment and love amid the rubble of World War II Restitution tells the tale of Alix, a German aristocrat left stranded as the Soviet Red Army advance upon Germany, eager to drive the final nail into the Nazi coffin. Alix is forced to seek refuge in her former home during a snowstorm, where she is joined by her childhood sweetheart – who winds up deserting her. Stranded, Alix is left on her own in a world full of anger and hate. This is a tale which draws on the stories of the civilians who were displaced during the war, clearly portraying most German civilians as frightened, disillusioned spectators to Hitler’s game of life and death. Eliza Graham is an adroit writer; her prose is succinct yet powerful.
Oxford Times
When Eliza Graham’s book Playing with the Moon was published by Macmillan New Writing last year to much acclaim, it was assumed that this was her first novel. Not so. Eliza, who lives in the Vale of the White Horse, had another novel stored away, which she had been working on for several years. Playing with the Moon may have been the first novel she had published, but not the first she had written.
This does not mean that the manuscript for Restitution, which she tucked away for more than six years, is second best. Far from it. Having written it, Eliza needed to distance herself from both the story and the characters. Also, the agent she was using was not getting anywhere with it. So she got on with Playing with the Moon, which has proved a great success, being nominated a World Book Day ‘Hidden Gem’.
Perhaps Restitution would have remained in mothballs forever, had the Macmillan editor not asked her what else she had to offer, once her first book was in the system.
"Because it was a first novel, it had been written and rewritten in several different formats. I had even changed the tense and many of the characters. Now it was time to look at it again," said Eliza, who not only re-read the manuscript when her editor asked about it, but re-keyed every single word. "I did change it a bit, but I was determined it would not be a cut-and-paste job," she explained.
Restitution’s story opens in 2002, but Eliza then takes the reader back 60 years, just as she did with Playing with the Moon. "I think 60 years is the ideal time lapse. It’s just long enough ago to be alien to me, but within others' living memory."