ONE MAN'S WAR

Name: ONE MAN'S WAR
Author: P.M. Kippert
ISBN: 978-1-61373-356-1

by P.M. Kippert ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2016

Through its attention to detail and its deliberate perspective, Kippert’s first novel delivers a precise, tense, and moving...

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In this episodic novel of World War II, a young American soldier stationed in Italy fights in the Battle of Anzio and observes a host of quiet horrors along the way.

This first novel, inspired by the experiences of Kippert’s late father, follows a soldier named Bob Kafak through his experiences in Italy at the tail end of the war. It intersperses tense scenes of combat with lighter scenes of Kafak and his peers and occasionally moves away from the front lines entirely. The novel is neatly structured, which is of a piece with Kafak’s experiences: “Because each time you went under fire was a new time. Each time was the first time, sort of. All over again.” This isn’t a novel with scenes of individual heroism; instead, Kippert focuses on the messiness of battle. At one point, Kafak shoots at a group of German soldiers, who all fall—but he’s far from the only one who was firing in their direction. Much of the time the action is intentionally chaotic: one description of combat zeroes in on Kafak’s specific actions—firing his gun, throwing a grenade—while withholding the larger picture until after the battle has ended, to nerve-wracking effect. That focus is intentional: in the novel’s preface, Kippert briefly explains his decision to stay with Kafak’s perspective and not reveal the bigger moments in broad strokes. (An Author’s Note at the end of the book provides a larger historical context.) Thanks to Kippert’s matter-of-fact storytelling, the bleakness accumulates without ever overwhelming the tale. In the novel’s first quarter, one of Kafak’s fellow soldiers abruptly shoots himself, while another loses a foot to gangrene; there’s also a memorably scatological use for uniform helmets. Throughout, a balance is achieved between the absurd and the harrowing.

Through its attention to detail and its deliberate perspective, Kippert’s first novel delivers a precise, tense, and moving story.

Pub Date: May 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-61373-356-1

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Academy Chicago

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.