The Toymaker

A person is defined by the secrets they keep. Adam Kulakov likes his life. He’s on the right side of middle age; the toy company he owns brightens the lives of children around the world; and he has more money than he can ever spend, a wife and child he adores, and as many mistresses as he can reasonably hide from them. He is not the only one with secrets. In 1944, Adam’s grandfather, Arkady, was imprisoned in Auschwitz and given an impossible choice. Now, as he’s coming to the end of his life, he has to keep the truth from his family, and hold back the crushing memories of his time with one of history’s greatest monsters. As a mistake threatens to bring Adam’s world tumbling down around him, the past reaches for Arkady. Everything he’s spent a lifetime building will be threatened, as will everything Adam and his family think they know of the world. Bold, dark, and compelling, The Toymaker is a novel about privilege, fear, and the great harm we can do when we are afraid of losing what we hold dear.

Liam Pieper studied creative writing and then journalism and now works as a freelance writer. His work has appeared in the Age, The Best of the Lifted Brow, the Saturday Paper, and The Sleepers Almanac, and he is the co-recipient of the 2014 M Literary Residency. He is the author of a memoir, The Feel-Good Hit of the Year.