A poignant, if sometimes cloying, marriage of wartime fiction and fact.
A debut novel about a boy’s all-too-quick passage into manhood during World War I.
Yanowitz delivers a multilayered narrative about a Jewish Englishman, Neuman Director. His grandson, John, discovers a letter that refers to Neuman’s memoirs, which tell of his experiences during the First World War. As a 14-year-old boy living in the Jewish Quarter of London in 1918, Neuman lies about his age and enlists in the British Army, joined by his best friend, Zachary. Emboldened by the thought of claiming Palestine as a safe harbor for his fellow Jews, Neuman leaves his aggrieved but proud family and joins one of the army’s Jewish brigades, eventually dubbed the Judeans. He enters the war quickly; instead of the usual two weeks of training camp, he has a paltry three days before he sets sail for Egypt, ready to experience combat. Cocksure, athletically nimble and conversant in five languages, Neuman draws his superior officers’ attention, and they choose him for a secret initiative to smuggle British rifles to Jewish Palestinians along the Turkish border. Along the way, he meets Rachel, the beguiling daughter of a prominent Jewish family in Cairo; their romance is complicated by the family’s close friendship with Major Silbur, to whom Neuman serves as a valet. Between 2008 and 2011, Neuman’s grandson, John, devotes himself to tracking down a book that Neuman apparently wrote while he was a soldier. John’s quest leads him to dramatic revelations about his grandfather’s espionage career. Yanowitz delivers an enthralling personal drama nested inside a grand historical narrative. However, the novel’s excessively earnest dialogue sometimes slows the action; at one point, Neuman mawkishly expresses his grief: “Why you? I vow I will make your death worthwhile.” That said, John’s search for his grandfather’s book adds to the drama, deftly contributing factual detail along the way.
A poignant, if sometimes cloying, marriage of wartime fiction and fact.Pub Date: May 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1482057607
Page Count: 396
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.
A Christian woman and a Jewish man fall in love in medieval France.
In 1088, a Christian girl of Norman descent falls in love with the son of a rabbi. They run away together, to disastrous effect: Her father sends knights after them, and though they flee to a small southern village where they spend a few happy years, their budding family is soon decimated by a violent wave of First Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem. The girl, whose name becomes Hamoutal when she converts to Judaism, winds up roaming the world. Hertmans’ (War and Turpentine, 2016, etc.) latest novel is based on a true story: The Cairo Genizah, a trove of medieval manuscripts preserved in an Egyptian synagogue, contained an account of Hamoutal’s plight. Hamoutal makes up about half of Hertmans’ novel; the other half is consumed by Hertmans’ own interest in her story. Whenever he can, he follows her journey: from Rouen, where she grew up, to Monieux, where she and David Todros—her Jewish husband—made a brief life for themselves, and all the way to Cairo, and back. “Knowing her life story and its tragic end,” Hertmans writes, “I wish I could warn her of what lies ahead.” The book has a quiet intimacy to it, and in his descriptions of landscape and travel, Hertmans’ prose is frequently lovely. In Narbonne, where David’s family lived, Hertmans describes “the cool of the paving stones in the late morning, the sound of doves’ wings flapping in the immaculate air.” But despite the drama of Hamoutal’s story, there is a static quality to the book, particularly in the sections where Hertmans describes his own travels. It’s an odd contradiction: Hertmans himself moves quickly through the world, but his book doesn’t quite move quickly enough.
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4708-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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