by Wilmont R. Kreis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 2, 2015
An informative but often plodding tale that’s more likely to appeal to history buffs than casual readers.
Kreis’ (The Labyrinth, 2014) historical novel explores the dangers and rewards of Colonial North America, as seen through the eyes of a Puritan woman.
This book follows Lizzie Price as she moves from a settlement in Deerfield, Massachusetts, to Native American camps to the bustling city of Montreal over the course of her eventful life. She moves from Northampton to Deerfield with her family at the age of 13 but becomes unhappy with the trappings of a Puritan lifestyle. She resists her community’s disdain for fun, as well as its emphasis on marriage; instead, she’d rather read her secretly obtained books or take a swim at her secret place in the Deerfield River. She’s in danger of being labeled a spinster at 19 when she begins a romance with Andrew Stevens, also known as “Skagit,” a fur trader who, as a child, was taken from his settler family by Native Americans. However, the couple’s happiness is short-lived. Soon after Andrew changes his lifestyle to become respectable enough to marry Lizzie, Native Americans raid Deerfield. They rip Lizzie away from her new husband and kill or capture most of her family and her fellow Deerfield residents. Lizzie’s Native American master eventually entrusts her to the care of Catholic nuns in Montreal; there, she must try to put her broken community back together and decide what the trajectory of her life will be. Kreis’ historical research comes through clearly in this novel, which shows various aspects of daily Colonial life in great detail and offers maps to provide context for the characters’ travels. He also paints clear pictures of various Colonial locations, and readers, who may only be familiar with famous Colonies such as Plymouth and Jamestown, will appreciate its broader glimpse into pre-revolutionary North America. However, there are occasional passages that uncomfortably focus on teenage characters’ sexual development—specifically Lizzie’s. Readers may also find themselves quickly overwhelmed by the novel’s ponderous length and large cast of characters.
An informative but often plodding tale that’s more likely to appeal to history buffs than casual readers.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1505678925
Page Count: 418
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Roy Jacobsen ; translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2020
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Roy Jacobsen ; translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw
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by Roy Jacobsen translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw
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by Roy Jacobsen & translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw
by Heather Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
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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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