WHERE NO BIRDS SING

by I. A. R. Wylie ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 1947

A very disappointing book from an author who usually has an excellent sense of timing-story- character. This time she misses, as she attempts a difficult feat, the telling of a story on several time levels. Distant past, in the story of Franz Thomas' parents, Ap, a Welshman, who had settled in Montana, and whose soft-heartedness resulted in his death, and Magda, German-American, who had a broken heart over her adopted country's betrayal of her fatherland. Franz becomes engaged to Henny, the first girl to override his pathological purity. After the war; the stays on in Germany in the occupied zone, and Henny's desertion throws him into a strange, unphysical affair with Truni, whose status as half-Jew he believes, not knowing she had been the wolf-woman of one of the concentration camps- member of the underground- pregnant by her half-brother. Franz sees her as a symbol, and when he learns the truth about her, is caught by the pity and the softness that had cost his father his life and the two together suicide. Unsalutary, picturing the occupied zone at its seamiest, but the story fails in significance.

Pub Date: July 25, 1947

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1947

Categories: FICTION