by Eva Schmidt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 18, 2016
A well-written first novel with complex characters and unexpected twists on old themes.
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Two women—a young mother and a teenage Mennonite—confront life’s hardships with a renewed faith in God in this debut Christian novel.
Mary is a young, idealistic girl growing up on a traditional Mennonite farm (automobiles but no furnace or running water) in Canada. Francis defied her upwardly mobile parents to marry the love of her life, Mike, and is a mother of two in Edmonton. Angered, Francis’ mother neither calls nor visits and has never seen her grandchildren. Mary helps her family with the farm, goes on picnics with her friends, and feels the first stirrings of love for a friend of the family, John, who is leaving town to study theology. Mary’s brother, David, also feels a calling to serve the Lord, and he discusses with Mary his thoughts about true salvation apart from mere obedience to their Mennonite customs. Mary’s parents do not approve of other denominations, but they recognize that outreach to youth is lacking in their congregation. Francis and Mike struggle to make ends meet in Edmonton, but Mike’s drinking and free-wheeling friends prey on his deep sense of inadequacy. He becomes abusive, and when Francis announces a third pregnancy, he beats her severely and abandons his family. Devastated, Francis is helped by a Christian co-worker. When David dies unexpectedly in an accident, Mary too turns to drinking and partying, and she runs away from home when she becomes pregnant. By juxtaposing Mennonite and secular cultures, developing strong female characters, and—best of all—crafting an ambiguous but hopeful tale, Schmidt has created a layered, satisfying novel. Rather than exotify the Anabaptist life, Schmidt characterizes Mennonites as having much the same problems as everyone else (though with a stricter view of “rebellion”). However, one drawback is that having Francis’ mother totally withdraw and her husband disappear is too convenient—a meddling mother and messy divorce would make the story more realistic. It would also make Mary’s subsequent flight, and her eventual meeting with Francis, more of a surprise.
A well-written first novel with complex characters and unexpected twists on old themes.Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5127-5017-1
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
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
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BOOK TO SCREEN
by Chaim Potok ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 28, 1967
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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