Discomfiting, disgusting and at times as grotesquely pleasurable as picking at a scab.
Fantasy debut plunges viscerally into the depths of medieval nightmare.
Hegel and Manfried Grossbart are sincere (albeit highly unconventional) Mariolaters as well as murderous grave robbers. The German siblings travel across 14th-century Europe toward Egypt, where they believe a multitude of rich infidel tombs await them. Along the way, they confront plague-bearing demons, assorted other evil creatures and treacherous locals. Gaining enemies wherever they go, they beguile their journey with heavy drinking and profanity-laced, profoundly heretical theological debate. A dementedly vengeful farmer whose family the Grossbarts slaughtered follows in dogged pursuit. Deeply rooted in history and folklore, the novel is both earthier and far more cynical than the original versions of Grimms’ fairy tales; it’s a perverse Dark Ages anti-Candide, drenched with bodily fluids—blood, vomit, semen and plague bubo discharge, among others. Whether readers enjoy this amusing, skillfully distasteful experience depends on the strength of their stomachs and the extent of their tolerance for intimate acquaintance with unpleasant characters.
Discomfiting, disgusting and at times as grotesquely pleasurable as picking at a scab.Pub Date: Nov. 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-04934-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
Vivid prose isn’t enough to lift this book from its own excruciating depths.
An avid young Hitler supporter discovers that his parents have been hiding a Jewish girl in their house.
Johannes Betzler is a child in Vienna when Hitler comes to power and Austria votes for annexation. In school, he learns that “our race, the purest, didn’t have enough land” but that “the Führer had trust in us, the children; we were his future.” Johannes joins the Jungvolk and, once he’s old enough, the Hitler Youth. At home, meanwhile, his parents grow more and more discomfited; they’re quietly opposed to the Nazi party but well aware of the danger they’d be in if they voiced their opposition—even to their own son. Then, as a teenager, Johannes is maimed by a bomb, losing a hand and part of his cheekbone. Wounded, he returns home, where for months he is bedridden, alone in the house with his mother and grandmother. Increasingly, his father is—mysteriously—gone. His mother seems to be acting oddly and, finally, Johannes discovers the reason why: There is a girl, a Jewish girl, hidden upstairs in a secret partition. This is where Leunens’ (Primordial Soup, 2002) novel takes off. Johannes becomes increasingly fixated upon Elsa. At first, her existence prompts him to question his devotion to Hitler—is he betraying the Führer by not reporting his parents?—but as time goes on, and as Johannes’ preoccupation with Elsa grows more sexual, these doubts fade. Leunens is a strong writer, her prose supple and darkly engaging. Her depiction of wartime Vienna is nearly cinematic and utterly convincing. But it isn’t clear if Johannes is meant to be a sympathetic character, and as the novel goes on, and his choices grow more and more disturbing, it becomes harder to sympathize with him. Nor does he change, exactly, over the course of the book, although his circumstances certainly do. Ultimately, it’s unclear what Leunens’ larger purpose is. This is a dark, disturbing novel—but to what end?
Vivid prose isn’t enough to lift this book from its own excruciating depths.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3908-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
How Book Adaptations Fared at Golden Globe Noms
BOOK TO SCREEN
McMorris continues to explore the themes of love and war in this tale about commitment, passion, prejudice and heroism set against the backdrop of World War II.
Maddie used to tag along behind big brother TJ and his buddy, Lane Moritomo, but as the aspiring violinist matured, she and Lane discovered they were much more than friends. Lane, whose stiff and formal Japanese mother and banker father have announced plans to marry their son to a Japanese bride, knows that if he wants to marry Maddie the time is now. But it is December 1941, and interracial marriage is not legal in California. Nineteen-year-old Maddie and Lane must go to neighboring Washington State to wed before Lane returns for his final semester of college. The morning after their wedding the unthinkable happens when the Japanese nation attacks the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, plunging the nation into war and launching an unrelenting hatred directed toward the thousands of Japanese-Americans who live in the U.S. Packed off to a relocation camp after his father’s detention, Lane urges Maddie to divorce him, but she’s unwilling to let go of the man she loves and decides, instead, to join him there. Fighting dehumanizing conditions, TJ’s disapproval and her mother-in-law’s aloofness, Maddie follows her husband’s family, setting the stage for a sweeping story of two families in wartime America and the paths they take while the world is up-in-arms. McMorris, who is of Japanese-American heritage, creates a believable world, taking readers from the camps to the Pacific Theater during the height of the war and into the heart of the Midwest, all while perfectly capturing the flavor of the period.
Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7582-4685-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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