Look After Her

By: Hannah Brown

Narrated by: Emma Johnson

Upon the death of their art-loving parents, two young Jewish adolescents are kidnapped by a family friend and taken to a brothel. There they are held captive by their shared shame and by the younger sister’s forced addiction to morphine. Love and psychodrama gives them the courage to finally escape Vienna. Once in England, however, Hedy discovers her younger sister Susannah longs to be independent - and in Italy. But in 1938, despite the safety they each have found among the privileged, they return to Vienna just before Hitler arrives, putting their own lives and those of two children in danger.

With the background of anti-Semitism and exploitation, of sex and love and art and dramatic ruses, all during the terrifying rise of fascism in Austria and Italy, Look After Her reveals this truth: no matter how close we are to another human being, even a beloved sister, that’s what we are: close - we all have our own secrets to keep.

“Look After Her brings sex, sisters, and psychodrama to a story that will leave you haunted.” (Jess Taylor, author of Just Pervs)

©2019 Hannah Brown (P)2020 Inanna Publications

Critic reviews

“A complex relationship of sisterly love - complex at the easiest of times, compounded here by war and terrible circumstance. A beautifully detailed feast of a book!” (The Minerva Reader)

“Superbly well-paced, the novel evokes a sense of time and place so strong you can taste the Viennese chocolat mit schlag and the Italian espresso, and feel a chilly London winter in your bones.” (Terri Favro, author of Once Upon a Time in West Toronto)

“Here is a voice poignant and alive, offering unusual insights in scintillating dialogue. To leave the last page of this work is to re-enter the world you thought you always knew but which you now recognize anew in Hedy and Susannah.” (Canisia Lubrin, author of Voodoo Hypothesis)