A compelling exploration of faith and resistance in the face of oppression.
Koch’s historical novel, based on actual events, navigates the moral complexities of life in a small German village during World War II.
Viktor Koch, a 67-year-old Catholic missionary from the United States, lives in a monastery with his fellow monks of the Passionist order in Schwarzenfeld, “a backwater village nestled in the rambling, pine-covered hills of southeast Germany.” He is a beloved member of the community, having previously employed all the unemployed workers of the village in the construction of the monastery eight years prior. But in the spring of 1941, as the Third Reich bans Catholic worship and prepares to seize the monastery to transform it into a boarding school, Father Viktor and his order are commanded to leave. Choosing to stay behind to run a church, the priest likens his predicament to Christ’s parable of the sower, observing Schwarzenfeld as being filled with “good patches of lush soil…but the thorns are proliferating in Germany, and the fowl are ravenous.” Following Father Viktor’s story from 1941 to 1945, Koch, the great grand-niece of the real-life priest, expands the narrative to include several other morally conflicted characters, such as a local Nazi office director who’s sympathetic to Father Viktor’s plight, a local baker named Norbert who’s critical of Nazi policies, and his fellow bakery worker, Helene, who has two sons. The oldest son, Klaus, finds himself torn between loyalty to his family and the allure of his Hitler Youth training. Father Viktor regularly sermonizes and reflects on the importance of working within God’s framework to determine which path to choose in a world that’s ultimately outside of our control. As the shadow of war spreads, Koch deftly intertwines the tales of Schwarzenfeld’s inhabitants, all wrestling with their consciences and limited choices. Though the momentum of the story occasionally lags due to repetitive themes and strict adherence to historical events, the depth of the character development and the vivid descriptions of their internal struggles will keep readers engaged even through the slower passages.
A compelling exploration of faith and resistance in the face of oppression.Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781961532533
Page Count: 341
Publisher: Mindstir Media
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2024
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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