A harrowing story that readers will find compelling to the very end.
The past is never really past in Silman’s (Boundaries, 2015, etc.) latest novel, in which a man thinks back to his childhood in World War II–era Berlin.
It’s 1989, and the Berlin Wall has just come down. This awakens traumatic memories in Paul Bertram (ne Berger), who was a Jewish child in Berlin and escaped with his family to Sweden and then to America. He asks his ex-wife, Eve, to accompany him back to the German capital. They’d been married for 23 years and had three kids before Paul became distant and unfaithful. Paul has always been immensely talented, charming, and successful; everybody loved him—except Paul. Now he hopes for some sort of expiation in Germany, and surprisingly, Eve agrees to go with him. The Jewish Berger family had lived in Berlin for generations; they were successful and respected jewelers. In the 1930s, they thought that Adolf Hitler’s evil regime would pass. Later, their protector was Paul’s grandfather Gunther Berger’s chief designer, a gentile named Hjalmar Friedmann. The Friedmann family moves into the Bergers’ large house to disguise the Jewish family’s presence there. It gradually becomes, in effect, the Friedmanns’ house, as the Bergers have to hide in the attic. After Hjalmar dies in 1944, the Bergers make another long, dangerous trek. In this work, Silman shows herself to be an accomplished and experienced writer. The novel’s pacing is almost excruciatingly slow, but that’s what this study demands, as it allows the author to dig deeply into Paul’s pain and his relationship with Eve. Similarly, the elder Paul seems almost too good to be true, but that, too, is necessary so that readers can understand his suffering—his later success didn’t heal his wounds as he’d hoped it would. Over the course of the story, Paul comes to terms with his heritage, the awful things that he has done, and what has been done to him.
A harrowing story that readers will find compelling to the very end.Pub Date: March 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64008-900-6
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Campden Hill Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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