Annelies

Gillham (City of Women) has given Annelies Marie Frank (1929–45) the life so brutally taken from her, in the process honoring all the "Annes" who were lost in the Holocaust. In a less assured author's hands, a novel based on the premise that Frank survived the concentration camps would be in very bad taste; however, Gillham's beautifully crafted novel is a respectful tribute to the creative and passionate writer who died so young. Anne and her troubled relationship with the only other member of her family to survive, her beloved and formerly revered father "Pim," is sympathetically conveyed, as is the horrible guilt haunting the survivors. The author aims to stick to the facts as much as possible, basing the story before the annex on exhaustive research. Once Anne returns to Amsterdam after the war, Gillham brings in new characters as well as real people from Anne's diary, such as their protector Miep Gies. Frank's life thereafter is so vividly realized that readers will have to keep reminding themselves this is fiction.