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Chasing The Wind

Name: Chasing The Wind
Author: Walter Lubars
ISBN: 978-1-4952-2306-8

by Walter Lubars ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 15, 2014

An account of 20th-century immigration and assimilation that’s sometimes engrossing, but at other times laborious.

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The fates of two Jewish families intersect when they immigrate to America in Lubars’ (The Monterey Marauders, 2014) second novel.

In 1913, the job prospects for promising young teacher Chatzke Rozan are dwindling, as more and more of his fellow Jews are leaving Warsaw for America. At the insistence of his wife, Leah, he sails for Ellis Island himself and soon builds a life in the Bronx. However, World War I and numerous financial setbacks trap Leah and their children, Sarah and Aaron, in Poland for several more years. When the Rozans finally arrive in the United States, Aaron quickly leaves the family and takes up with communist sympathizers, while Sarah refuses a series of suitors before settling on bad-boy Brooklynite Abe Landers. The book’s most harrowing, moving passages recount the tragic deaths of Abe’s father and siblings as they struggle to escape Russia for America, where Abe trades school for pool halls and the company of low-level gangsters. He eventually marries Sarah in 1925 and gets a steady bank job, but his restlessness soon leads him back to the pool rooms. Sarah, meanwhile, lives with her husband’s violent mood swings and her own health complications. In addition to these domestic dramas, the Rozan and Landers clans grapple with the Great Depression, and later, the Holocaust, which they hopelessly read about from the safety of America’s shores. Lubars recreates these historical periods with great care and accuracy, and he has a particular talent for showing the optimism of immigrants. For example, the Statue of Library’s torch, one says, “means that everybody in America will be kept warm.” He also effectively shows how such good feelings can eventually flame out when faced with America’s harsh realities. As the novel goes on, however, it consistently relies upon the same narrative devices—particularly Abe’s tiresome misbehavior and the distances that both families travel when they need, must repay, or have been scammed out of money.

An account of 20th-century immigration and assimilation that’s sometimes engrossing, but at other times laborious.

Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4952-2306-8

Page Count: 478

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

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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

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Hulu’s ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Adds To Cast

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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.