A comic novel in which humorous theological interpretations favor flippancy over derision.
Mortal beings on a spiritual journey encounter a motley assortment of characters in Aunsoo’s debut farce that sends up various religions.
Amma the Many Breasted Goddess is the Creator of All That Is. She gives free will to her children, who, like Amma herself, often roam the Earth. Though the goddess loves the Humans—she capitalizes their name—she created, she notes that they were “annoying and willful right from the start” and creates the Moroli to keep them under control. The Moroli are also mortal but otherwise superior to Humans. They consume blood and regularly hunt Human virgins. But Volod, a Moroli who begins questioning the Moroli Way, goes on a journey of transformation—to be reborn as Human. Along with his male companion and sometime lover, Aurel, and, later, Mimir, an elderly woman, Volod floats down the Kutsal and Lethe rivers. The three voyagers come across a medley of people, from a false prophet to a possibly deranged author. Meanwhile, Britney, a female Human who’s “bewitched” with “Sexual Hunger,” pursues Volod and Aurel, having witnessed them sucking blood and believing they’re “vampire boys” aiming to turn her into one of their kind. Volod is wary of the seemingly crazed Britney and hopes to steer clear of her until he finds Amma, who will complete his transformation. This quirky satire entails religious imagery such as that of cattle, which some beliefs hold sacred, and a variation on the story of Adam and Eve. But Aunsoo doesn’t single out one religion for ridicule over others and maintains a steady supply of absurdity. The novel comprises three “Testaments,” focusing on Amma, the genesis of the Moroli, and, for the bulk of the story, Volod’s spiritual journey. While the narrative includes the English translation of ancient cuneiform tablets discovered in Iraq, there are also more contemporary references. These are typically silly, including the use of relatively modern slang (“kick-ass weed” or “you’re freaking me out”) and of pop culture such as the song “Singin’ in the Rain” and a particularly funny Star Wars joke.
A comic novel in which humorous theological interpretations favor flippancy over derision.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 201
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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