An earnest but odd addition to the Christmas literary canon.
A Christian teenager finds his faith tested during the holiday season in this inspirational debut novel.
It’s Christmastime in Chicago, but 16-year-old Christopher is having trouble getting into the holiday spirit: “Christopher was starting to think the whole celebration was nothing more than a clever lie. Santa Claus wasn’t portrayed accurately, and it wasn’t really Jesus’ birthday. He wondered what was real about the holiday.” He begins to question whether Jesus or God is even real. One night, he finds a gift box in his bedroom. When he opens it, a bright light comes shining out and the room begins to spin. Christopher gets sucked into the box, where he finds himself in a void that takes on the shape of Soldier Field. Here he meets a tall, athletic being named Michael—the same name as his father—who teaches Christopher that seeing isn’t necessarily the same as believing. Armed with only the crystal cross Christopher received as a gift for his Confirmation (and subconsciously reached for as he was being pulled into the box), they begin a journey across the galaxy. Christopher visits alien worlds where the locals still believe in Jesus—though some have fared better than others. Can this trip through the universe help Christopher rekindle his faith in Jesus? DiSalvo’s prose is conversational and clearly imbued with a Chicago-centric worldview. Here Christopher’s father, Michael, is described: “He epitomized the cliché of what a man from Chicago should have been: hardworking, blue collar, and strong yet compassionate.” The novel is essentially a retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, though it is more Jesus-specific and involves aliens. (Whether that sounds like an improvement or not is probably a good measurement for how much readers will enjoy the book.) Even for such an obviously allegorical work, the characters are thin: Christopher and his dad are both stand-up guys whom the whole neighborhood respects. The lessons Christopher learns along his journey do not feel particularly Christian, moral, or personal (à la Ebenezer Scrooge), but rather vaguely fantastical. This may please those looking for some new Christmas fiction, but many readers will be left scratching their heads.
An earnest but odd addition to the Christmas literary canon.Pub Date: June 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-973663-72-0
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2020
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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