An expertly structured, morally complicated, and surprisingly timely blend of fact and fiction.
An intimate, sidelong look at Argentina's bloodiest dictatorship.
In this fictionalized retelling of the regime that terrorized Argentina from 1976-'83, composed as a triptych, Kohan depicts its mental and emotional impacts on the everyday people of his home country. The opening section, "Mercedes," recounts the sexual awakening of 12-year-old Mirta López in 1941 and her repeated attempts to absolve her "wicked thoughts" within the dark confessional booth of uncomfortably curious Father Suñé (“And what exactly did you feel while you were doing it?”). The catalyst for Mirta's newfound urges is none other than future brutal dictator Jorge Rafaél Videla, referred to only as "the Videlas’ eldest son," who passes Mirta's house on a predictable route, affording her a view from a conveniently situated armchair. Eventually, Mirta ventures outside and attempts to cross paths—but never interact—with the boy, until one day at Mass he unexpectedly sits next to her and Mirta's lust reaches a surreptitious culmination right there in the pew. Hinting descriptions of Argentina's "old water cartography, canals and bends, unspoken tunnels" punctuate the first section and link it to the second, "Airport," which details an attempt by Marxist guerrillas to assassinate Videla nearly 40 years later as his airplane takes off. The pseudonymous operatives access the underground waterways of Buenos Aires to plant dynamite beneath a runway, but one crucial explosive fails to detonate. The final section, "Plaza Mayor," recounts a game of cards between the elderly Mirta López and her grandson as a foggy, circuitous conversation about the past unfolds. Propulsive and unsparing, Kohan's prose mimics the uncertainties of history and suggests that truth resides somewhere between official record and popular memory and that reality is thorny, ambiguous, and fully human in its messiness.
An expertly structured, morally complicated, and surprisingly timely blend of fact and fiction.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781913867652
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Charco Press
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
A captivating allegory about evil, lies, and forgiveness.
Truth and deception clash in this tale of the Holocaust.
Udo Graf is proud that the Wolf has assigned him the task of expelling all 50,000 Jews from Salonika, Greece. In that city, Nico Krispis is an 11-year-old Jewish boy whose blue eyes and blond hair deceive, but whose words do not. Those who know him know he has never told a lie in his life—“Never be the one to tell lies, Nico,” his grandfather teaches him. “God is always watching.” Udo and Nico meet, and Udo decides to exploit the child’s innocence. At the train station where Jews are being jammed into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz, Udo gives Nico a yellow star to wear and persuades him to whisper among the crowd, “I heard it from a German officer. They are sending us to Poland. We will have new homes. And jobs.” The lad doesn’t know any better, so he helps persuade reluctant Jews to board the train to hell. “You were a good little liar,” Udo later tells Nico, and delights in the prospect of breaking the boy’s spirit, which is more fun and a greater challenge than killing him outright. When Nico realizes the horrific nature of what he's done, his truth-telling days are over. He becomes an inveterate liar about everything. Narrating the story is the Angel of Truth, whom according to a parable God had cast out of heaven and onto earth, where Truth shattered into billions of pieces, each to lodge in a human heart. (Obviously, many hearts have been missed.) Truth skillfully weaves together the characters, including Nico; his brother, Sebastian; Sebastian’s wife, Fannie; and the “heartless deceiver” Udo. Events extend for decades beyond World War II, until everyone’s lives finally collide in dramatic fashion. As Truth readily acknowledges, his account is loaded with twists and turns, some fortuitous and others not. Will Nico Krispis ever seek redemption? And will he find it? Author Albom’s passion shows through on every page in this well-crafted novel.
A captivating allegory about evil, lies, and forgiveness.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780062406651
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.
Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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