Ambitious but lifeless first novel of a fictional town in Germany, between 1939-43, where even ``ordinary'' Aryan citizens are inevitably affected by the Nazi regime. Hershman's portrait and—in effect—indictment of Kreiswald, a town small enough so that most people know one another, is made up of individual stories, with a cast of common characters who increasingly behave as if ``slavery and murder were to be tolerated.'' As Thea, a member of the local resistance, observes: ``There was something called the national good. It entered our lives assiduously, like a whiff of perfume, seducing innocent and intelligent alike; by the end, caught lying with it under our soiled flag, we all stank.'' A sensitive clerk, Thorgood Stella, must record the executions at the police station. Unable to share his horror, he turns away from his young wife Gerda, whose flirtation with police Commander Terskan turns into an affair. Recovering from a stroke in the local hospital, the wife of one of the policemen discovers a hidden ward from which children disappear. An ambitious map-maker hopes to profit from the closing of Jewish businesses. He also embarks on an affair with his landlady, whose husband suddenly returns after working as a builder at Auschwitz. Beloved playmates turn out to be Jewish and are taken away; an amateur musician finds himself caught up in the Nazi enthusiasm as he leads a parade; and a young woman who hates the war is in love with a soldier, who promises her that he ``won't shoot.'' As British bombs destroy the town, police and resistance members race to get hold of the files from the now-bombed police station—documents that will reveal just what it was the citizens of Kreiswald did during the war. Commendable concept, with credible if somewhat too carefully chosen characters, but vitiated by self-conscious writing and intrusively unsubtle intentions. Disappointing.
Pub Date: Nov. 6, 1991
ISBN: 0-06-016644-4
Page Count: 233
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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