This serious effort to evoke the crucible of German fascism proves less effective at conveying emotional resonance.
The perspectives of perpetrators, victim, and bystanders evoke the horrors of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Noted New Zealand author Chidgey’s latest is a lengthy, well-researched addition to the already sizable shelf of Holocaust fiction. Dr. Lenard Weber is a Mischling, only part Jewish, but he ends up at Buchenwald, having been summoned there by Sturmbannführer Dietrich Hahn. Hahn’s role at the camp is administrative officer—overseeing budgets, plumbing, etc. The inmates are less than human to him but not so his wife, Greta, with whom he lives in a luxury villa. When Greta develops ovarian cancer, Dietrich will try any medical resource, which leads him to Weber, inventor of the Sympathetic Vitaliser, a machine designed to destroy cancerous tumors. Weber narrates his story in 1946, via letters written to his daughter, who's in the Theresienstadt ghetto; Dietrich’s account dates from the 1950s; Greta's "imaginary diary" takes her from 1943 to 1945; and a fourth narrative voice emanates from 1,000 citizens of Weimar, whose awareness of the vast camp nearby is filtered through propaganda, self-interest, and delusion. Packed with precise details about the camp, German culture, the Nazi machine, and much more, the novel offers a sober reflection on a country seized by dehumanizing insanity, corrupted by lies and cruelty. Yet the characterization is predictable, especially when it comes to Dietrich, a familiar blend of Aryan orderliness, contempt, and deception. Greta senses the abyss on her doorstep but averts her eyes. Weber is a sympathetic lens through which the worst of the suffering may be glimpsed. And the Weimar citizens embody denial, disgust, and disbelief. As the war wraps up, deliverance for one survivor contrasts with guiltless acceptance by the German community.
This serious effort to evoke the crucible of German fascism proves less effective at conveying emotional resonance.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-60945-627-6
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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