A heart-wrenching illumination of the Polish perspective on World War II.
Metzger’s historical novel follows a young Polish-born soldier through World War II.
At the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Polish soldier and migrant Stefan Nosek reflects upon the losses he has endured in the war, following the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The novel subsequently braids together two plots that integrate his enlistment prior to the Battle of Normandy and his life as a young man working for the Polish embassy as he falls in love and aims to balance nationalism and pride before, during, and following the Katyn Massacre. When tragedy strikes, Stefan enlists, and the novel follows his platoon through the heart-wrenching battles leading up to the Battle of Normandy. The author grounds his perspective on World War II’s atrocities with deep philosophical underpinnings, leading readers to reflect upon the viewpoints of the time as well as ideas related to free will versus determinism, pride, and loyalty to one’s country, one’s family, and one’s self. The story’s Polish point of view is intriguing and the story unusual. However, the book is often weighed down with ideology—while the ideas have merit and interest, there are moments when the story is lost to dense, exposition-heavy proclamations such as “Russia invades us while we’re fighting the Nazis, takes a third of our territory, deports a million and a half of our citizens into Russia itself, arrests ten thousand Polish army officers and hides them away in secret work camps…Yet every day I have to read about what wonderful people the Russians are.” Because there are two unique story lines, the two conclusions feel tenuous. Although this is a dark and tragic contribution to historical literature, it does educate and encourages readers to reflect upon war’s impact upon the world and the psyche. While more story and less ideology would enrich the novel, the focus on the Polish WWII experience makes this an important contribution to historical fiction.
A heart-wrenching illumination of the Polish perspective on World War II.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 9798366964685
Page Count: 361
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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