Passage to manhood across global waters

A Sea Change, by Michael Arditti, Maia Press, €13.20.

Karl - the narrator of this curious fusion of history and fiction - remarks early on that if he had a pound for every time he has been asked why his prosperous Jewish family did not leave Germany in 1933, he would be a rich man.

He notes, however, that people don���t so much ask as accuse him. It’s as if he and his ...