A rich historical novel of Germans who plotted against Hitler.
In Schrader’s historical epic, a group of Germans acts against the Nazi regime.
Germany, 1938. Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party have changed the face of Germany. While many Germans seem to almost worship the new leader, the young Baron Philip von Feldberg is not so sure about the direction the country has taken. “Philip noted the huge Nazi flag flapping before the station and caught sight of the straw swastikas hung on the Christmas tree at the post office. In one of the store windows, someone had placed a photo of Adolf Hitler and adorned it with greens and a candle as if it were the picture of the Virgin or a saint.” Regardless of his feelings for the Führer, Philip is a member of the German General Staff, the group of men who will be in charge of executing the war that Hitler seems to be itching to start. It turns out he isn’t the only Hitler-skeptical member of the General Staff. He soon strikes up a friendship—and more—with an outspoken secretary named Alexandra Mollwitz. There are others who are horrified by the Nazi’s excesses: Marianne Moldenhauer, a fed-up factory worker; Peter Kessler, a disillusioned Gestapo officer; even Alexandra’s boss, Gen. Friedrich Olbricht. But are these Germans willing to betray their government in order to save Germany—and maybe the world—from destruction? Schrader’s prose is spare but fluid, as here when illustrating a camp Marianne attends during her national labor service: “The Duty Leader woke the girls in the barrack with the usual loud ringing of the bell, followed by shouts of ‘Wake up! Wake up!’ A chorus of groans and muttered curses could be heard as the girls rolled out of their bunks, and the everyday chaos of a hundred girls rushing to the showers began.” The author is less adept at handling some of the romantic relationships—they are quickly established and largely uncomplicated—but romance is perhaps not the point of the book. The novel is a deeply researched window into the wartime lives of Germans at odds with Hitler’s regime, and while the story of Operation Valkyrie may be well known, Schrader offers the larger context for the German resistance with admirable depth and detail.
A rich historical novel of Germans who plotted against Hitler.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Cross Seas Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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