Alison Pick brings her award-winning poetic sensibilities to a difficult historical subject in Far to Go. A complex story of a family’s struggle set against the backdrop of the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland, the novel focuses on the Bauer family, secular Jews caught in the rise of anti-Semitism. Patriarch Pavel Bauer is a respected, rich business owner who, with his wife, Annaliese, refused to face the reality of occupation and can no longer obtain the necessary permission to cross the border. They attempt to find safety for their six-year-old son, Pepik, via the Kindertransport, a passage for children from Nazi-occupied countries to be rescued by families in Britain. Also central to the storytelling is Marta, the housekeeper, a young woman deeply involved in the family, and the primary force behind the book’s emotional resonance.

There are lines here perfect in their despair and desolation. The hopelessness and fear is conveyed in typical Pick style — with both a light hand and a punch to the gut. Pick successfully hinges together the complex narrative twists with historical records, letters, and fragments of history. Passages about Pepik, a child fleeing persecution, losing a family, and eventually starting a new life, are heart rending. There are times, however, when the narrative loses its charge — slowed down by lengthy, unnecessary description, and leaning on a particular brand of formulaic drama. Pick’s beautiful language, however, is strong enough to support these weaker points.

Pick artfully reveals the Bauer family’s fate, and traces the ties that bind (and confine) their complex dynamic. Beyond the simple explanations of xenophobia and hatred, the novel reveals the realities of betrayal, secrecy, resentment, and bitterness in its perpetually broader historical tragedy.