Eduardo Halfon: Tarantula, Penguin UK/ Hamish Hamilton,  9781405986762, paperbach, pub date March 2026

This is an extraordinary novel and I am still thinking about it, having ambivalent feelings.  Only 112 pages long it is a powerful story about what it means to be Jewish, present and past tense. Eduardo Halfon creates a masterful story, switching between a teenage and adult Eduardo, confronting his previous tormentor Salomon Blum who ran a youth camp in  Guatemala in 1984 where his US immegrated parents sent Eduardo and his brother.  At first a very normal youth camp, the tables are turned on day four where trusted Salomon Blum turns into a Nazi version as a concentration camp head. 

This disturbed me greatly when reading how the children are traumatized systematically. Eduardo's and Samuel's conversation years later about what happend and why,  steeling themselves to be Jewish in today's complex world, is thought provoking to say the least.