A gripping novel that effectively captures the predicaments of those caught up in one of history’s bloodiest wars.
Gardner’s debut historical novel, set during the Thirty Years’ War in the 1600s, tells the story of a Lutheran pastor and a Catholic major whose lives are intertwined from boyhood.
The novel opens in 1618 in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Sixteen-year-old Peter Erhart and his father, Jakob, the chief accounting officer for the Holy Roman Emperor’s Bohemian Embassy, make their way to a meeting at Hradschin Castle. A group of Bohemian Protestant rebels forces its way into the castle, intent on provoking an uprising by murdering Catholic representatives; the young Peter comes to the aid of Hans Mannheim, a Catholic boy who’s attending the meeting with his father, a baron and chief military adviser. The boys witness the incendiary spark that ignites the Thirty Years’ War—a complex post-Reformation conflict, fought largely between Catholics and Protestants, which resulted in 8 million deaths. After this brief meeting, Peter and Hans are riven apart, but neither forgets the encounter. The novel then revisits them in 1629, when they’re both in their late 20s. Peter is now married and has become an influential, charismatic assistant pastor in Magdeburg, Germany. He’s also caught the eye of Anna Ritter, a feisty peasant girl. Hans, meanwhile, is a cavalry major in the Catholic Imperial Army, planning to besiege and conquer the city where Peter and Anna live. How will Peter and Hans’ fleeting encounter as kids determine the future of Magdeburg? And how will Anna shape their fates? This is a dazzling historical novel in which fictional and real-life historical characters, including Lutheran administrator Christian Wilhelm, intermingle seamlessly. Surprisingly few novels are set during the Thirty Years’ War, which will be obscure to most Americans. Gardner ably breathes life into these characters, though, and part of this talent lies in how he creates realistic, thought-provoking interplay between them all. A tantalizing example is when Peter delivers a sermon and is afterward approved to the cathedral council; Wilhelm observes the sermon, scowling, and later approaches Peter to offer insincere praise: “My compliments to you, young man. Your delivery was thorough and clear, the tone pleasant, and the content was for the most part quite edifying.” He then turns on his heel to leave but checks back, his demeanor changing, and he soon proceeds to critically dismantle Peter’s sermon: “you’re going beyond your station as a pastor when you hint at your personally preferred solutions to complex political issues.” Throughout the novel, Gardner is repeatedly able to accurately reflect subtle shifts in his characters’ emotions—in this case, Wilhelm’s biting capriciousness—by employing elegant, cutting, well-timed dialogue. He combines this with a plot that burns with suspense, intrigue, and passion, bolstered by thorough historical research. The end result is a compelling page-turner that won’t allow readers to rest before they reach the final page. Overall, this is a sharply written offering that’s thrilling and shocking in equal measures.
A gripping novel that effectively captures the predicaments of those caught up in one of history’s bloodiest wars.Pub Date: June 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9998811-2-5
Page Count: 630
Publisher: Zino Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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