“Gustav had been given the first name of the German carter who had picked him up in a crib abandoned on the side of a road. This had happened outside the small town of Ellingen, hence the surname. On the child’s coat a note had been pinned that here was a Jewish baby, to be delivered to the Waisenhaus in Nuremberg.”

Based on his own family history, David Pryce-Jones’s virtuosic novel tells the tale of the Ellingens, one of the richest and most powerful Jewish families in the Habsburg Empire.

Gustav will ascend from the poverty and obscurity of an orphanage to the pinnacle of Viennese society, steering the family’s fortunes through defeat in the Great War, the inflation of Weimar, and the perils of Depression. His only child, Henriette, must cope with the challenges of innocence and wealth. But her only child, Jules, will face a far more terrible challenge in the rise of Nazism. The Afternoon Sun is a vivid portrait of four brilliant generations and their Europe by a peerless observer who knew them as few others could.

“Strength of will proves to be Gustav’s real legacy to his family,” Booklist wrote, “far outlasting his mansion, industries, and gold.”