An entrancing literary effort drawn from authentic characters and settings.
Memories' ghosts haunt this intriguing novel, the third from Schmahmann (Nibble & Kuhn, 2009, etc.).
Helga Divin is dying, and her two children have rallied to her side at her London home. Danny is a wealthy investment banker who lives near Boston. Bridget also lives in America with her daughter, Leora, and her husband, Tibor, a Bulgarian refuge. The Divins are natives of Durban, South Africa, although both youngsters were forced to flee penniless during apartheid. Soon after, widowed Helga, a liberal university professor, married Arnold Miro, a wealthy businessman, and moved to London. It does not help family dynamics that Miro is a boor, a greedy poseur who has isolated the normally strong-willed Helga. Miro also is attempting to misappropriate a collection of Zulu historical objects gathered by Silas Divin, Helga's first husband, Danny and Bridget's father. Among the artifacts are two elephant tusks given to one of the first settlers of the region, Nathaniel Isaacs, a Jew. As the Divins are Jewish, the tusks reign symbolically over the novel, as does Gordonwood, the hilltop estate Silas purchased. Also important to the narrative are Baptie, a servant at Gordonwood who feels a maternal connection to Danny and Bridget, and her son Eben, whose appearance is emblematic of the nation shaping itself out of apartheid's ashes. Told in four parts, with Danny's point of view in the first, the story moves to Eben and new Africa in the second; and Morton Nerpelow, the family's Durban attorney, in the third. Characters come together in the fourth. Danny's human frailties inspire empathy, as do Bridget's, but the imperturbable and constantly supportive Tibor is sketched admirably, and Miro as nemesis is unambiguous. Point of view sometimes slips, especially when Danny relates the tale. Chapters are very short, some less than a page, but one offers an interesting precis of the first contact between whites and the Zulu nation.
An entrancing literary effort drawn from authentic characters and settings.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-89733-612-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Academy Chicago
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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