Crossing the Borders of Time is as gripping as any fiction. Janine Gunzburger Maitland's escape from Germany to France during Hitler's rise to power, her family's eleventh-hour escape on a refugee ship and their acclimation to America is woven with another story--the sorrow at leaving her fiancé behind, and the life-long hope of seeing him again. Former New York Times investigative reporter Leslie Maitland grew up hearing her grandparents' and her mother's stories about their lives in Alsace, their flight from the Nazis, and the struggle to gain entry to the U.S. Her grandfather saved forms, papers and photos of lost relatives, which Maitland uses to illustrate the book, underscoring the sadness of changed names and addresses as her ancestors sought safety.
Maitland always listened to Janine's stories about Roland, the love of her life; despite their pledge of undying love, she never heard from him again. As Maitland researched the family history during a "reconciliation" trip to Germany with her parents, she determined to find closure for her mother. The meticulously researched history underscores one family's saga of persecution and survival, while the tale of Janine and Roland adds a very personal theme. Readers hoping for a happy ending will be rewarded by a conclusion any novelist would have been happy to create. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller