The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border

by Frances Stonor Saunders

'Frances Stonor Saunders is one of those writers you read no matter what she writes. She is that good... This is family history at its best... the words fizz off the page and flutter in the mind' Sunday Times

Ten years ago, Frances Stonor Saunders was handed an old suitcase filled with her father's papers. 'If you open that suitcase you'll never close it again,' warned her mother. Her father's life had been a study in borders - exiled from Romania during the war, to Turkey then Egypt and eventually Britain, and ultimately to the borderless territory of Alzheimer's. The unopened suitcase seems to represent everything that had made her father unknowable to her in life. Now she finds herself with the dilemma of two competing impulses: wanting to know what's in the suitcase, and wanting not to know.

So begins this captivating exploration of history, memory and geography, as Frances Stonor Saunders unpicks her father's and his family's past. Is it possible to bring her father back, to summon once more someone who was distant and elusive when alive? The past is always the history of loss, of black holes, of things gone missing. Life is a long forgetting, even as we live it. The Suitcase is an extraordinary, heroic effort of retrieval, driven by the ache for completion. It is about the silences and stories that protect us, and the borders we construct, literally and figuratively, to fortify our sense of who we are.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, History

240 pages, Hardcover

Published June 3, 2021

About the author

Frances Hélène Jeanne Stonor Saunders is a British journalist and historian.

Reviews

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Remember: Everything remembered is just a story"

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jahrelang stand der Koffer ungeöffnet auf ihrem Dachboden. Bis jetzt konnte Frances Stonor Saunders ihn nicht öffnen, denn er enthält Dinge von ihrem Vater, der vor Jahren gestorben ist. Seit sie den Koffer hat, schiebt sie es vor sich her, ihn zu öffnen.

"Wenn der Koffer einmal offen ist, kannst du ihn nicht mehr verschließen". Frances weiß nicht, was der Koffer enthält. Wie wird sie ihren Vater sehen, wenn sie den Koffer geöffnet hat und die Dinge darin in der Hand hält? Schon jetzt ist ihr bewusst, dass ihre Erinnerungen sich nicht immer mit denen der anderen Familienmitglieder decken. Wie auch die an den Koffer, denn wenn sie an den denkt, hat sie ein ganz anderes Modell vor Augen, das ihr damals übergeben wurde und das sie zuerst nicht annehmen wollte.

Irgendwann öffnet sie den Koffer dann doch und findet darin Erinnerungen an den Vater, sondern auch an seine Familie. Die Geschichte der Familie ist interessant. Der Großvater hat vor dem zweiten Weltkrieg als Erdölingenieur in Rumänien gearbeitet, während des Kriegs wurde die Familie vertrieben. Damit begann für den Vater eine Odyssee durch die Türkei und Ägypten, die in einem englischen Internat endete.

So wie der Koffer einzelne Stücke aus dem Leben des Vaters enthält, wird auch die Geschichte in Einzelteilen erzählt. Manche davon waren interessant, aber sie haben sich für mich nie zusammengefügt. Das liegt auch daran, dass Frances über ihren Vater immer ein bisschen so erzählt, als ob er für sie ein Fremder war.

[Elsa Wolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book begins off with the premise and later makes comparisons between the mysterious suitcase, a coffin, and Pandora’s box. It is written in first-person by Frances, whose father’s suitcase is transferred over. The overall facts are interesting, but sometimes they are presented too quickly in a sea of names and places. Other times, drawn out history is written that feels disconnected and told with maps and travels through politics. It sometimes cycles back to her father’s Alzheimers, but the conveyance of facts strays too far away from the contents of the suitcase to the point where it feels like there isn’t a case at all.

[JoBerlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sehr, sehr lohnende Lektüre über Verlust von Heimat und Gedächtnis: Exzellent recherchiert und top geschrieben.

[Christopher Whalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly one of the most beautiful, poignant, heart-breaking, informative, horizon-expanding, mental border-crossing, brilliant books I have ever read. If a book can make you cry in its opening pages and again in its closing pages, it is something special. I could not recommend this highly enough. Pick up a copy now and start reading, even if you are in the middle of something else. I want to give this book to everyone I know. I’m so grateful Frances Stonor Saunders has given it to us.

[Guus]

I am not finished reading this book yet. But the following sentence caught my attention on page 43 of this wonderful book: "...chaotic jams that were already strafed by German Stukas..." The scene describes a horrific event in 1916 in Romania during the Great War.
As far as I know, the Stuka was a German dive bomber used and tested firstly in the Spanish Civil War as a weapon for the Nationalist forces of Franco, given to him by Hitler.

[Bob Wigin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in the LRB. A meditation on the movements of Saunders' ancestors in the run up to and commencement of WWII within and outside of Romania. The book focuses on her relationship with her father, and his relationship to the war. Arbitrary geography causes unthinkable changes for the people of Europe as war allows for the redrawing of national borders. A powerful memoir.

[Ambrogio · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poignant and intelligent family history. Like all family histories, some of the details are of interest mainly to members of the family, but Stonor Saunders works hard to connect her family’s story with the Second World War, the Holocaust, colonialism, chance, and Alzheimer’s. Parts of the book are beautifully written. Ultimately the suitcase is a conceit but this is an engaging book

[Emoke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grateful to my sister for her random find she enthusiastically shared for it to enter the list of amazing, unexpected finds for me. A beautifully written and well researched family history and contemplation on origin, borders, the volatility of notions such as home, nationality, belonging, origins, described in a deeply personal gallop through events of the twentieth century.

[Kate]

FT review

[David Michelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harrowing

[Tiffany L Vignoles · Rating 4 out of 5]

read in france

[Ms Jayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable and informative study of loss. The writing is beautifully crafted and memorable and the descriptions of life in inter-War Romania are very evocative.