A mostly engaging, if imperfect, historical novel about a couple dealing with the aftermath of war.
A sequel continues the story of two German Jewish musicians—one a Holocaust survivor, the other the daughter of a Nazi—living in postwar Brazil.
Brazil, 1945. Nazi Germany has just been defeated, which comes as great news to Dieter Meister, a survivor and recent escapee of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He now plays piano in the long bar of the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, accompanying (and living with) the celebrated chanteuse Sofie von Seigler. Dieter and Sofie knew each other in Berlin before World War II, though they were separated by his internment. Like Dieter, Sofie is the child of a Jewish mother, but her father, a Wehrmacht general, was able to help her survive the war in Prague. Now Dieter and Sofie live in Rio with fake Swiss passports identifying them as the Havliks. Sofie’s father, Otto von Seigler, is also in Brazil, hiding in the country’s interior from those who would bring him to justice for his wartime activities. Dieter and Sofie are ready to have the life they’ve dreamed of—they’ve recently caught the attention of renowned American bandleader Booker “Buca” Pittman—but the legacies of the war continue to haunt them. A new American intelligence service intent on proving itself begins the search for Otto, dragging Dieter and Sofie back into the past. Neff’s (Über Alles, 2016) prose sparkles with period details and movie-worthy dialogue: “If you Americans are truly interested in visiting justice upon the thieves, torturers, and murderers who have ravaged Europe for a decade,” says Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, one of the novel’s many cameos, “these files will help identify many who should not be allowed to slip away unpunished.” The author has done his research, though he is perhaps overly eager to prove it, inserting expository digressions that often read like history rather than historical fiction. Fans of the first book, or those interested in the fragile geopolitics following the war, will enjoy this sequel, even if the strings Neff uses to animate his characters are often visible.
A mostly engaging, if imperfect, historical novel about a couple dealing with the aftermath of war.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-938462-39-9
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Old Stone Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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