A fresh, well-thought-out approach to two legends.
Kurdas’ (Seven Reasons to Love the Constitution, 2017, etc.) debut novel offers a clever new twist on the often tumultuous relationship between two of America’s Founding Fathers.
In this thought-provoking work, a retired dentist–turned-bookseller discovers a cache of letters in an old map case. The correspondence, which runs from 1801 to 1804, is between John Adams, the nation’s second president, and Alexander Hamilton, its first treasury secretary. Adams and Hamilton of the Federalist Party, which favored a strong central government, were forced from office when Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans, which promoted more power at the state level, swept into power in 1800. The two main characters are an unlikely pair. Writing from his home in Quincy, Massachusetts, Adams blames Hamilton—and the Ultras faction of the Federalists, which Hamilton led—for his defeat in 1800: “This will confirm your opinion of me as unrestrained, foolish, tempestuous, even crazy, as you explained at length in your election pamphlet of 1800. I supposed it mattered then.” Hamilton, based in New York City, saw his actions as being what was best for the fledgling United States. Instead, the burr under his saddle is Aaron Burr, Jefferson’s first vice president, who would go on to kill Hamilton in an 1804 duel; Hamilton writes that Burr may be remembered “for committing every possible indecency.” With this novel, Kurdas provides an informative window into the souls of these two correspondents as they debate their philosophical differences, often in the most sarcastic of tones. She also shows that despite their diverging views, the two have much in common. Adams begins his correspondence just after the death of Hamilton’s eldest son, Philip, in an 1801 duel because he can empathize, having lost his own eldest son, Charles, to drink. Both men have been cast aside by the country that they helped found; both have strong, supportive wives; and both take solace in gardening. Under other circumstances, these men might have been friends. These fast-paced missives allow readers to see all the wrong turns that these historic figures took in their lives, leaving a sad sense of what might have been.
A fresh, well-thought-out approach to two legends.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973718-35-2
Page Count: 204
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...
An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.
Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowierer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas. She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.
The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as nonfiction. Still, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching tale that is hard to shake off.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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