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Kathy Henderson’s memoir My Disappearing Uncle has compelling characters but is better suited to a novel
Book review
Kathy Henderson recollects stories of her childhood. Photo: George Blair
My Disappearing Uncle by Kathy Henderson
Clemens, picture from the Henderson Schey collection
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This book’s title, My Disappearing Uncle, based on Kathy Henderson’s stories of her childhood, and on the lives of her parents, grandparents and other extended family across Europe, is something of a misnomer.
The disappearing uncle – Clemens, the younger brother of her mother Inge – doesn’t really feature until well into the second half of the book. However what happened to him is earth-shattering and at the heart of a story that’s essentially about how Jews were treated in Europe over the last 200 years, so it is perhaps understandable that the author highlighted Clemens’s story in the book’s title.
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