A finely wrought, chilling tale of terror, slaughter, and hardship and of the courage and endurance of those struggling to...
Armenian Christians in 19th-century Turkey endure discrimination and atrocities at the hands of the government, the Muslim majority, and others in this historical novel.
Inspired by her own Armenian ancestors, debut author Rivers portrays the violence that Armenian Christians faced in their ancestral home in 1895 and ’96. Three narrators in the city of Erzerum in eastern Turkey tell the tale: Martiros, one of four brothers in the prosperous Armenian Kavafian family; his sister-in-law, Marjan; and Hamed, a close neighbor who’s a Muslim and an officer in the Turkish army. After an uprising of Armenian revolutionaries and nationalists in Constantinople, trouble spreads across the country. The government jails Armenians, who also face torture, rape, and murder by soldiers and mobs as they lack the basic rights of their Muslim countrymen. The wave of violence reaches Erzerum with the murder of two impoverished Armenian hay carriers. Later, the government locks up the city’s leading Armenian bishop, and soon, a government-led rampage breaks out, with troops and mobs raping, murdering, and looting. Hundreds of Armenians die and are buried in mass graves. The Kavafians ride out the massacre in a hideaway that Hamed provides them at great peril to his military career, but the oldest Kavafian brother, Sarkis, sneaks out on a secret mission to help resisters and gets killed. After exacting revenge, family members and friends grieve and try to reassemble their broken lives; some elect to leave the country, and Marjan slips into Russia with her family. Rivers weaves a dense, intricate tapestry of the Armenian Christians' lives, set against larger political and social events. The many names of people and places become easier for readers to track thanks to supplemental material, including a brief history, family tree, glossary, and maps. Rivers adeptly evokes the passions and enmities of family relations as the once-comfortable Kavafians try to adjust to their new, nightmarish reality. She also leavens the tale’s tragedy with flashes of wry humor: “A physician makes a lot of friends if he doesn’t kill too many of his patients,” Marjan notes. Although Rivers convincingly details her characters’ personal dilemmas and actions, the government’s political motivations are less clear—but perhaps there’s no explaining state-sponsored madness.
A finely wrought, chilling tale of terror, slaughter, and hardship and of the courage and endurance of those struggling to survive.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4808-1874-3
Page Count: 386
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
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.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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