An unsettling but page-turning novel about 20th-century evil.
A German classic about the Nazis' escalating campaign against the Jewish people, in a translation newly revised by Joshua Cohen.
Written in 1933, the year Hitler was appointed German chancellor, the Bavarian Jewish Feuchtwanger's five-alarm warning of a novel focuses on the well-off Oppermann family, of which three brothers run a family chain of furniture stores in Berlin. With their history of achievement and as proud Germans, the siblings think they're safe from the oppressive actions they're hearing about. The first inkling that they are at risk comes via the persecution of 17-year-old Berthold Oppermann, a good student and self-possessed soul, by a Nationalism-embracing teacher who loves hearing his students sing "When Jewish blood spurts from the knife, / Then all goes well again." Soon enough, the weight of state-mandated hatred falls on the Oppermanns in spite of their painful decision to change the name of their business to a non-Jewish–sounding name, as other Jewish firms had done. But as the scourge of discrimination against Jewish businessmen, doctors, and others intensifies, leading to suicides and purges ("Who was shameless enough to allow himself to be operated on by a Jew today?" it is asked), the notion among self-deluding Jews that "the disease that ails this country, man, is acute, not chronic" dims. The novel never raises its voice. Its power builds from its methodical telling of day-to-day reality, how the characters respond to increasingly frightening events, and what their future, if there is one, holds. News of concentration camps—the horrors of which even Feuchtwanger, writing as a French exile, couldn't imagine—is heard from a distance. Readers will be struck by how little the language about White supremacy, antisemitism, the swapping of lies for facts, the discrediting of the press, and the embrace of violence over reason have changed. It's hard to imagine a 90-year-old book being more timely.
An unsettling but page-turning novel about 20th-century evil.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-946022-33-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: McNally Editions
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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