A historical novel chronicles an American soldier’s march across France during World War I.
Emmet “Judy” Redding enlists in the Army in order to play baseball, but then war breaks out in Europe. He’s sent to be trained by seasoned French forces in eastern France, a corporal in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, part of the American Expeditionary Force sent to halt German advancement. After training, Judy participates in the AEF’s first major offensive action in Cantigny in May 1918 and makes his way to Meuse-Argonne by October of the same year, shortly before the war’s conclusion. He experiences his share of amorous rendezvous. In Paris, he falls in love with Jeanne Trevost, a Frenchwoman, and intends to marry her. But their union faces two obstacles. Judy learns from her brother, Rene, that she is promised in marriage to another, a matter of family arrangement. Also, Jeanne works as a spy for France and is captured, leaving Judy praying she survives her ordeal. Debut author Redline served in France as part of the AEF and was a decorated soldier. As the book’s editor and the author’s daughter, Redline Coopey, points out in the introduction, this novel is just as much memoir as it is fiction. The novel is mostly written in the first person from Judy’s perspective and details not only the brutality and deprivation of combat, but also the camaraderie of the soldiers. Redline captures the savagery of war while avoiding maudlin sentimentality or valorization of the killing fields: “We were thin, emaciated, tattered and torn. If addressed, we didn’t respond, for the effort was too great. We had only curses for those who might fawn upon us and glorify our achievement, but we took and held the town.” The author doesn’t shy away from confronting the moral complexity of war. In one memorably heartbreaking scene, Judy consoles a fellow soldier who raped a woman. The soldier roils with regret, and while horrified on behalf of the victim, Judy also feels great sympathy for his friend, knowing how the pain of loneliness and fear can disfigure the soul. Further, Redline portrays the romances between American soldiers and Frenchwomen with considerable nuance; all were in search of some respite from the war. The predicament of the women is especially bleak since a generation of prospective spouses was sacrificed to repel the Germans. Redline’s prose is sure-footed and powerful, and he often allows Judy to wander into philosophical reverie, thoughtfully contemplating the grimness of his plight. The war’s toll is achingly depicted: Judy initially has reservations about alcohol, but its regular consumption numbed him to his own distress.
A poignantly written, unflinchingly realistic account of war.Pub Date: March 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9979351-0-3
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Fox Hollow Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
While a few weeks ago it seemed as if Praeger would have a two month lead over Dutton in their presentation of this Soviet best seller, both the "authorized" edition (Dutton's) and the "unauthorized" (Praeger's) will appear almost simultaneously. There has been considerable advance attention on what appears to be as much of a publishing cause celebre here as the original appearance of the book in Russia. Without entering into the scrimmage, or dismissing it as a plague on both your houses, we will limit ourselves to a few facts. Royalties from the "unauthorized" edition will go to the International Rescue Committee; Dutton with their contracted edition is adhering to copyright conventions. The Praeger edition has two translators and one of them is the translator of Doctor Zhivago Dutton's translator, Ralph Parker, has been stigmatized by Praeger as "an apologist for the Soviet regime". To the untutored eye, the Dutton translation seems a little more literary, the Praeger perhaps closer to the rather primitive style of the original. The book itself is an account of one day in the three thousand six hundred and fifty three days of the sentence to be served by a carpenter, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. (Solzhenitsyn was a political prisoner.) From the unrelenting cold without, to the conditions within, from the bathhouse to the latrine to the cells where survival for more than two weeks is impossible, this records the hopeless facts of existence as faced by thousands who went on "living like this, with your eyes on the ground". The Dutton edition has an excellent introduction providing an orientation on the political background to its appearance in Russia by Marvin Kalb. All involved in its publication (translators, introducers, etc.) claim for it great "artistic" values which we cannot share, although there is no question of its importance as a political and human document and as significant and tangible evidence of the de-Stalinization program.
Pub Date: June 15, 1963
ISBN: 0451228146
Page Count: 181
Publisher: Praeger
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1963
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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