A stirring story of survival against a beastly adversary.
A debut historical novel follows the dangerous exploits of the Jewish Resistance during the Nazi occupation of Poland.
In 1937, everyone in Poland anxiously discusses the possibility of a Nazi invasion, especially Jewish citizens all too aware of Hitler’s savage anti-Semitism. The Biebersteins are a prominent family—affluent and influential—but that fails to spare them from the increasingly open hostility toward Jews. Only a young boy, Cass Bieberstein fears for the future, a concern only exacerbated by his Uncle Bernie’s decision to immigrate to the United States in advance of what he thinks is an inevitable act of aggression by Germany. Eventually, the Nazis arrive, and the Biebersteins are exiled from their own home. Cass’ father, Sigmund, is persuaded to flee Poland because it’s well-known that he helped Jews escape Germany and will be executed by the Nazis if found. Cass falls madly in love with his friend Zofia Wagner, but her father collaborates with the Nazis and becomes infatuated with their hateful ideology, sending his daughter to a youth camp for indoctrination. Repulsed by Hitler’s grotesque theories of racial superiority, she runs away from home to be with Cass but is kidnapped and murdered by Nazi soldiers, a horrid act chillingly described by Duke. Inconsolably distraught, Cass vows to avenge her death and becomes a freedom fighter, ultimately joining the Jewish Resistance group Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa. The author also follows the plight of two sisters, Sarah and Rachel Goldstein, friends of the Biebersteins, who are arrested and sent to the Treblinka concentration camp. In Duke’s tale (written with Biebers), the prose is plain and undecorated by poetical embellishment but powerful as a result of its straightforwardness. For example, the descriptions of the conditions of Treblinka are unflinchingly vivid but absent any cloying dramatization. While a novel, the plot is based on the real-life experiences of Casimir Bieberstein, whom Duke was able to interview at great length; Biebers is Casimir’s son. The extraordinary wealth of narrative details and their historical authenticity are both luminous testaments to the rigor of Duke’s research.
A stirring story of survival against a beastly adversary.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-2667-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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