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KATYA

Name: KATYA
Author: Sandra Birdsell
ISBN: 1-57131-043-6

A NOVEL OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

by Sandra Birdsell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 9, 2004

Finely wrought, but leached of passion or dramatic tension.

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Canadian author Birdsell (The Chrome Suite, 1995, etc.) chronicles the effects of the 1917 Revolution on a family of German Mennonites in Russia.

Living in Canada, where she emigrated in the 1920s, the aging Katya recalls her early life for a historian. Her story highlights an unfamiliar chapter in Russian history: Mennonites who fled persecution in Germany in the late 18th century and established colonies on the Russian steppes. They thrived there, as did the wealthy Sudermann here. Even Katya’s father, who was Sudermann’s estate overseer, aspired to be a landowner. Katya recalls in lavish detail that long-ago life—the countryside, Christmas at the Sudermann manor, harvesting the crops—as she describes her own large family, living near the big manor house, and playing with the Sudermann children. But the Sudermanns kept their distance when the Vogts came too close, hurriedly marrying off son Dietrich, who had fallen in love with Katya’s older and favorite sister, Greta, to someone more suitable. Such class distinctions quickly became meaningless as WWI began. The Mennonites were pacifists and would not fight for the tsar, but they did serve, like Katya’s father, in the medical corps. As the war went badly, unrest grew in the Russian countryside, and then, as the revolution broke out, bands of anarchists, Bolsheviks, and peasants, who had long envied the Mennonites’ prosperity, pillaged and plundered their properties. Katya and her two younger sisters miraculously escaped, though not before witnessing the brutal massacre, in 1917, of most of the Sudermann and Vogt families. Katya, then in her teens, was traumatized by the events, but she survived to make a life for herself, though one always haunted by the past.

Finely wrought, but leached of passion or dramatic tension.

Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2004

ISBN: 1-57131-043-6

Page Count: 392

Publisher: Milkweed

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

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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

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Hulu’s ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Adds To Cast

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.