Suzanne Leal

And I think particularly the relationship between the mother and the daughter and that relationship of love and sacrifice was very well done.

I think that throughout the book, there are instances where the writing is overwrought, where it just becomes, where she's at her best, Jennifer Rosnutt,

he's held back and sparse, because I do think that the Holocaust, it almost speaks for itself.

I think books that make it much more overwrought often take away the space from the horror of the acts themselves.

And I thought at some points in The Yellow Bird Sings, there's just that, as you say, slight sentimentality where...

The language is slightly overwrought.

Sometimes the musical metaphors are overdone where I would have liked to have seen a bit of pulling back.

In terms of the ending, one criticism I had was Rosa becomes involved with a man called Aaron and I didn't believe that relationship.

I found that it progressed too quickly and I didn't understand why.

where it had come from and how it had developed to such an extent.

So that's something I would have liked developed more.

In terms of the ending, I was surprised by it, but I thought it was probably very realistic.

I thought it was an appropriate ending.

I'm probably not the right person to argue back against that.

I think that's right.

So just turning to my book before, Rachel, what I used in order to manage the horror of the Holocaust without taking advantage of it, I think, was to make my main protagonist, Hannah, a woman who's pretty dry...

and almost sarcastic and almost so cerebral that she can even take herself out or so damaged, depending how you see it.

And my landlord, Fred, was like that as well.

He was a man who was quite dry.

So when he would talk about the Holocaust, he would tell me the horror that he would lift it in the end by making not quite a macabre joke,