A lucid history of the Jewish experience after World War II, but unsatisfying as a fictional tale of real people in the...
In this historically panoramic drama, the horror of the holocaust permanently binds and alters the lives of two German boys.
Leo Bergner is a young Jewish boy whose otherwise quiet middle-class upbringing is ruptured by the rise of the Third Reich. After fleeing his native Germany in order to escape the persecution that envelops his parents, Leo matures into a committed Zionist, becoming a British officer to defend Israel against its anti-Semitic adversaries, Nazi and Arab alike. Leo’s childhood piano teacher, Bruno Franzmann, follows a different trajectory: He works for the Nazis as an administrator at a concentration camp. A wave of consequence washes over all who sided with the Fuhrer when it becomes clear that Allied Powers will prevail, so Bruno decamps for Buenos Aires. There he hopes to begin a criminal enterprise centered on bribing former Nazis bent on concealing their identities. The narrative leads the reader to the final crescendo, their reunion: Now a well-heeled banker, Leo discovers a vast financial conspiracy that facilitated the looting of Jewish property during the war, which draws him into Bruno’s nefarious dealings. Maitland-Lewis’ tale is scrupulously researched, saturated with rich historical detail. His account often deftly depicts both the gradual unfurling of Nazi atrocities and the psychological trauma thrust upon so many Jews as a result. While Leo struggles with the pathos of a fractured identity—his German nationality pitted against his Jewish religion—Bruno abandons all sense of allegiance to his own narrowly conceived self-interest. Problematically, such an ambitious psychodrama requires deeply textured characters and a nuanced exploration of their motives, which Maitland-Lewis doesn’t fully offer. A few developments don’t add up—Bruno’s growth from a morally divested Nazi collaborator to anti-Nazi compatriot or hardnosed Leo’s sympathy for him. The story seems to be designed as a moral parable, but the lesson isn’t quite clear.
A lucid history of the Jewish experience after World War II, but unsatisfying as a fictional tale of real people in the throes of moral crisis.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2011
ISBN: 78-0983259633
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Glyd-Evans Press
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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