DAVID AND JONATHAN: On Coming of Age and Surviving the Holocaust, by Cynthia Voight, Scholastic, 249 pages, $14.95.

This is a story of the friendship of two young men, forged, torn asunder, and healed. Henry Marr, a starchy New England Gentile, and Jonathan Nafiche, youngest child of an extended Jewish family, are the best of friends. The story begins and ends in an intensive care unit of the U.S. Army hospital in the Vietnamese jungle. Capt. Marr finds his friend Jonathan among the critically injured and is the physician of his choice for his surgery.

The action shifts backward to the time the men spent together as teen-agers. The transition is eerily and artfully made by placing the boys in a game of war on a Cape Cod beach. Conflict is introduced when Jonathan’s cousin David arrives. The youngest child of Mrs. Nafiche’s sister, he is the only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust. He is suicidal and has come to live with the Nafiche family in the last-chance hope that they can offer him a reason to continue living. David’s mental state requires that he be constantly supervised and the burden of this falls upon Jonathan. Henry, uninformed about the situation, is bewildered by what he takes to be Jonathan’s preference for David over him and despairs the loss of their friendship.

Voight, a Newbery Medal winner and Maine resident, walks a high wire in this tale, moving realistic characters around in an atmosphere of tension, hatred and guilt. Raw human nature is painfully exposed in Henry’s struggle for the preservation of his relationship with Jonathan. He balances between the rage which David’s manipulations create within him and a sense of guilty sympathy for all that he has suffered as a Jew.

Voight explores the effects of prejudice by contrasting the deep bond of friendship between Henry and Jonathan with the inability of both Jonathan’s rabbi father and Henry’s wealthy Bostonian grandmother to accept those of different background. One of the livelier moments in the book is presented in a point-counterpoint verbal match between Jonathan and Henry’s grandmother during a visit following David’s death. Her first remark upon meeting Jonathan: “They didn’t tell me you were Jewish.” His reply:” They didn’t tell me you were rich.”

The verbal duels between Henry and David are, unfortunately, more confusing. David maliciously baits Henry for the perverse enjoyment of the experience. He preys upon his closeness to his cousin, planting seeds that make Henry question his sexual orientation and motivation for their friendship. Seemingly unrelated questions and verbal jabs are thrust upon Henry, so much that the reader at times cannot follow and is left bewildered.

The frequent use of parables also has a perplexing effect. While this literary device does contribute to the Jewish atmosphere, its primary effect is to create a feeling of broken rhythm and interruption of the plot.

“David and Jonathan” is an unwavering look at the emotional debris which comprises the life of one Holocaust survivor. Within this context, Voight skillfully interweaves a tale of adolescent friendship. While there are some plot machinations which confuse, the overall effect of the book is intense and profound, leaving the reader with a feeling of having connected with the main characters in their pain and grouping for an elusive solution.

Judy Eyerer is a free-lance writer who resides in Bangor.