
Harpers turned over the New Books section of its February 2021 issue to novelist Claire Messud, who highlights three titles: Philippe Sands’ The Ratline; Hermione Lee’s Tom Stoppard biography; and Endpapers. “Alexander Wolff is keen, after a generation of silence, to follow the untold stories wherever they might lead,” she writes. “In the end, Wolff offers the words of Umberto Eco: ‘Those things about which we cannot theorize . . . we must narrate.’ To bring stories into the light, to render their humanity, is our best hope.” Messud also notes the connection between the families of two of the reviewed authors: Sands is married to Natalia Schiffrin, granddaughter of Jacques Schiffrin, who collaborated with Kurt and Helen Wolff during the early days of Pantheon Books. Read the review here.