Anton by Dale Eisler Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by Kris Brandhagen $22.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-46-0 Dale Eisler’s Anton is a perfect marriage of insight and history. The writing is intelligent; addressing the problems of memory, physical memory, exile, extreme circumstances and lack of geographical identity using the conventions of autobiography. The story of Anton and his best friend is well designed, intensely layered, a refreshing mix of show and tell. Such rich detail! As a reader, I felt as if Eisler reached into my mind and revealed that I already know the universal human truth. The narrator, Anton, is Eisler’s grandfather, as a four-year-old boy whose first memory is seeing his mother cry, and thus crying too. When his mother picks him up, he “remember[s] the smell of her dress like it was yesterday. We always washed our clothes in a large wooden tub in the backyard and used lye soap that smelled like lemon. Mom’s dress smelled like lemon that morning”. The writing is tidy, sensual; as a reader not only can I see, but I can taste, smell, touch. This also, being the first day Anton retains in memory, is what he refers to as the…