An informative if starchy novel about a crucial turning point in American history.
A you-are-there account of George Washington's—and Baron von Steuben's—stalwart efforts to whip the beaten-down Continental Army into the crack fighting force that defeated the British.
Former Speaker of the House Gingrich and Forstchen, co-authors of six previous historical novels, continue their George Washington saga (To Try Men's Souls, 2009, etc.) with the inspirational story of Valley Forge. Having been routed at Brandywine and Germantown and suffered the massacre of a unit at Paoli, Gen. Washington's Continental Army is in shambles, mentally and physically. Underfed, poorly equipped, undermanned and dispirited by the depletion of some 2,000 soldiers, they stand no chance of defeating the more disciplined and professional British infantry. Dissenting brass assailing Washington's "Caesarisms" are calling for his removal. A large number of colonialists, fighting as Loyalists, are aiding the British cause. Enter Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben of Germany. A battle-scarred veteran of the Seven Years' War, he has both the military expertise to upgrade the troops and the psychological astuteness to reach men whose outspokenness, sense of pride and moral outlook are distinctly American. The book, which boasts another European hero in the Marquis de Lafayette, succeeds in putting a human face on the conflict. But except in brief private moments with his loving wife Martha, in which she clearly holds rank over him, Washington is a cardboard figure. The battle scenes are solid, but the reader has to get through a lot of talk and stiff inner reflections to get to them. And while Gingrich and Forstchen effectively link past and present in showing how Washington's men, like today's soldiers, had to cope with a lack of bureaucratic support, the authors may want to remove some of the anachronistic dialogue ("he had tried to wrap his brain around English") in later editions.
An informative if starchy novel about a crucial turning point in American history.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-59107-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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