Mr Rosenblum's List

By NATASHA SOLOMONS

RRP: $34.99, Sceptre, Hardback

Jack Rosenblum is not like his fellow refugees. He’s ready to call England home. Unfortunately, it’s not ready for him.

It’s London 1952 and Jack Rosenblum has been given a list from the Jewish Aid Community on everything an Englishman is and does. He knows that marmalade must be bought from Fortnum & Mason, he’s memorized the entire history of the British monarchy back to 913 A.D. and the highlight of his day is the BBC weather forecast. But there remains one last item on Jack’s list, and without it he remains a rank outsider, a wandering Jew. An Englishman must be a member of a golf course.

But when everyone in a fifty-mile radius rejects him, he decides the only solution is to build his own. So, he sells everything and buys sixty acres on the side of a hill in rural Dorset.

From the moment he disembarked at Harwich in 1937 he understood that assimilation was the key. But the war’s been over for eight years and despite his best efforts, his bid to blend in remains fraught with unexpected hurdles. Including his wife Sadie, who incensed by his obsession, is busy remembering the dead by baking cakes five feet high and letting the weeds flourish in her garden. As Jack tries to finish digging the golf course in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, their marriage begins to unravel.

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