An epic, plodding saga jam-packed with historical specifics.
Prasad’s second novel (Fabulous Voyage Across the Sea, 2010) explores Spain in the late 15th and early 16th centuries via the perspectives of three men, each of whom becomes involved with Christopher Columbus.
For Miguel de Avila, life in Spain is growing worse. The flames of the Inquisition are increasing, and even the conversos—Jews who converted to Catholicism—like himself are the object of violent religious hatred. He is only slightly surprised when his dying father implores him to flee to safety. But first he must locate his imprisoned half brother, Luis de Avila. After paying a hefty bribe to free him, the two seek refuge. Miguel hears of an ambitious man named Cristobal Colon who has a scheme for a faster route to the Indies. Intrigued, Miguel secures passage on the Santa Maria, and his already dubious estimation of Colon is not improved: Miguel is one of several men abandoned when Colon returns to Spain. Realizing Miguel did not return, Luis joins Colon’s second voyage. His opinion of the man is no better than Miguel’s, thinking him “greedy and ambitious but wearing a mask of piousness,” and he’s appalled by his treatment of the native people. Unable to find Miguel, Luis returns and locates Miguel’s son, Aurelio. After university, Aurelio participates in the investigation into Colon’s questionable assertions, ultimately documenting his experiences with Colon and exposing the unjust, criminal actions of the Inquisition. 500 years later, Aurelio’s manuscripts are discovered by American Paul Henry, who must decide whether to use them to dissuade the Catholic Church from canonizing Columbus. Throughout the nearly 500 pages of the story, Prasad pays precise attention to historical detail, and his descriptions of life in Inquisitorial Spain, on the ships, and on the newly discovered islands are vivid. In the final section featuring Paul Henry, the largely reserved prose becomes more modern and relatable, and the pace accelerates as well. Some may find the cast too unwieldy. This, combined with an overall leisurely pace and an abundance of detail, may frustrate the casual reader.
An epic, plodding saga jam-packed with historical specifics.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5120-9453-4
Page Count: 502
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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