An intelligent historical reimagining that fails as dramatic literature.
In Hendrickson’s work of historical fiction, based on the Bible, a young soldier is entrusted with astrological charts that foretell the birth of Christ.
In the year 6 BC, Master Vinda-Farnah, head of the Magi Astronomical Sect, departs Babylon for Jerusalem, convinced that all the signs point to the imminent birth of the “Creator’s promised champion,” the world’s messiah. He travels with sacred star charts of incomparable prophetic value. It’s a dangerous journey, as the Parthian Empire from which he departs exists in a state of conflict with the Roman Empire he plans to enter without any permissions or protection; the complex political context is lucidly fleshed out by the author. Along the way, he’s intercepted and murdered by an assassin sent by another Magi, Master Dvandas, an adviser to Parthian emperor Phraates IV, a rival who wishes to possess the charts himself. Before he dies, Master Vinda-Farnah receives word from a “heavenly messenger” commanding him to entrust the charts to a man named Rassan, a newly minted officer in the Parthian emperor’s garrison who was dispatched to prevent his journey. Master Vinda-Farnah communicates the divine message before he dies, which moves Rassan deeply; per the Magi’s instructions, he’s instructed to deliver the charts to Master Daraya-Vous in Babylon. Rassan not only endeavors to deliver those charts—he becomes an apprentice Magi as well, fulfilling a longstanding desire to pursue a more meaningful destiny. Master Dvandas will stop at nothing to get hold of those charts, however, even if it means murdering Rassan himself.
Hendrickson’s command of the source material is remarkable; the rigorous research he’s conducted, which he details in a prefatory note, is admirably meticulous. While remaining true to the Biblical material, he also painstakingly reconstructs the political intrigues of the time, as well as the cultural context they occurred within. In the interstices of the historical record, he invents a story that combines the religious and supernatural with a serious reflection on the challenges faced by the Magi masters who eagerly anticipated the birth of their messiah. But for all its theological and historical veracity, the novel is considerably less convincing as dramatic fiction. The author tends to resort to soap-operatic melodrama of the kind that leans toward sentimental formulae and thin characterization. Master Dvandas, in particular, is a shell of a character, a pastiche of comic-book villains who sinisterly rub their hands together as they concoct their evil designs. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Rassan, whose unalloyed goodness and decency rob him of all psychological complexity. His bottomless earnestness is matched by the bloodless quality of the author’s prose. Here, Rassan eagerly reflects on the mission he was assigned by Master Vinda Farnah: “Ever since the man placed his hands on him and charged him with his dying words, his eyes have somehow been opened to newer and higher things. He always felt that the Creator would make known what He wanted him to do with his life.” This brew of maudlin sentiment and stale clichés grows tiresome quickly.
An intelligent historical reimagining that fails as dramatic literature.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9798985442571
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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