Resisting all attempts at categorization, Nicole Krauss’s Great House (2010) constitutes a groundbreaking contribution to the abundant literature of “postmemory” (Mariane Hirsch), which focuses on the experience of generations now distanced from, yet still profoundly affected by, the Shoah. At once elegiac, polyphonic and kaleidoscopic, the novel, written on the mode of fragmentation and exile, spans over three continents and more than half a century. It features vulnerable, introverted characters, riddled with guilt, regrets and doubts, whose apparently disjointed monologues turn out to revolve around a mysterious piece of furniture–a desk, which functions as repository of all sorts of fascinating legends or unspeakable secrets. Torn from its original owners during World War II, this item which has since then been passed from hand to hand, is alternately perceived by the characters as an inalienable asset or as a burden to be disposed of. This article will analyze in turn the aesthetical and ethical stakes of the narrative, its ambiguous symbolism and metafictional overtones. While asserting herself as an insightful “witness through the imagination” (Lilian Kremer) Nicole Krauss proposes a sensitive and nuanced reflection on the role of objects as conveyors of memory in literary texts as well as on the possibilities of redemption for the unwitting inheritors of the trauma.