This retro yet oddly fresh take on WWII captures the romance of wartime, but also the decadence and desperation.
Historical fiction about an American journalist turned Fascist combines the smoky, morally complex, romantic atmosphere of WWII–era films with the sternly enthusiastic tone of their accompanying newsreels.
Wheeler traces the intense, sexually charged friendship of two American reporters from their first meeting in a Paris café in 1938 and through the ensuing war. The prologue describes Jane Anderson, nicknamed the Georgia Peach, and Marthe Hess, called Mielle, with ominous matter-of-factness so reminiscent of an Orson Welles narration that readers will rush to Google their names to see if either actually existed. Unscrambling which characters are real or fictional here, let alone trustworthy or villainous, is difficult because so many of the real figures are long forgotten, though not the war correspondents. Reports from William L. Shirer and Edward R. Murrow, among others, introduce chapters, while various real and imaginary correspondents play important roles in the storyline. Mielle, who mostly works for “a syndicate of ladies’ journals in the Great Plains,” agrees with the correspondents’ ideals, but their pretentious self-assurance intimidates her. Instead, she is emotionally drawn to flamboyant, pro-Fascist Jane. They meet on Mielle’s 24th birthday; Jane is 50, though claiming to be 36. After great success reporting on WWI, Jane has led an increasingly dissolute life. Now a Franco devotee, she declares, “Fascists represent the law….History is on their side.” Wheeler’s depiction of Jane shows how dangerously appealing authoritarianism can be and how corrosive it is to one's character. Soon Jane is pushing Mielle toward uncomfortable ethical choices that peak after Kristallnacht. The novel then skips ahead three years and shifts into a Hitchcock-like plot. (An unnecessary, unfortunate subplot gives Mielle “visions.”) Mielle becomes more than a fictional witness to history when an American army intelligence officer who’s probably in love with her (think Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman) enlists her for a dangerous spy mission to 1942 Berlin. There her reunion with Jane, now broadcasting Nazi propaganda to America, is brief but life-changing.
This retro yet oddly fresh take on WWII captures the romance of wartime, but also the decadence and desperation.Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780316563673
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days...
In 1876, professor Edward Cope takes a group of students to the unforgiving American West to hunt for dinosaur fossils, and they make a tremendous discovery.
William Jason Tertullius Johnson, son of a shipbuilder and beneficiary of his father’s largess, isn’t doing very well at Yale when he makes a bet with his archrival (because every young man has one): accompany “the bone professor” Othniel Marsh to the West to dig for dinosaur fossils or pony up $1,000, but Marsh will only let Johnson join if he has a skill they can use. They need a photographer, so Johnson throws himself into the grueling task of learning photography, eventually becoming proficient. When Marsh and the team leave without him, he hitches a ride with another celebrated paleontologist, Marsh’s bitter rival, Edward Cope. Despite warnings about Indian activity, into the Judith badlands they go. It’s a harrowing trip: they weather everything from stampeding buffalo to back-breaking work, but it proves to be worth it after they discover the teeth of what looks to be a giant dinosaur, and it could be the discovery of the century if they can only get them back home safely. When the team gets separated while transporting the bones, Johnson finds himself in Deadwood and must find a way to get the bones home—and stay alive doing it. The manuscript for this novel was discovered in Crichton’s (Pirate Latitudes, 2009, etc.) archives by his wife, Sherri, and predates Jurassic Park (1990), but if readers are looking for the same experience, they may be disappointed: it’s strictly formulaic stuff. Famous folk like the Earp brothers make appearances, and Cope and Marsh, and the feud between them, were very real, although Johnson is the author’s own creation. Crichton takes a sympathetic view of American Indians and their plight, and his appreciation of the American West, and its harsh beauty, is obvious.
Falls short of Crichton’s many blockbusters, but fun reading nonetheless, especially for those interested in the early days of American paleontology.Pub Date: May 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-247335-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
A smart and engaging literary thriller that bears down too hard on its themes.
At the home of an eccentric millionaire, a woman discovers out-of-the-ordinary events.
When her husband is invited to finish writing his book at the island home of a reclusive millionaire, Anna is relieved: If he sells it, they’ll be able to keep their Bronx apartment and she won’t have to go back to work at the laundry. It’s 1918, and Charles Fort—based on a real-life figure—is hard at work on a book about unexplained phenomena, such as objects falling from a clear sky: frogs, for example, or even bits of flesh, or blood. If Anna has doubts about the legitimacy of his research, she keeps them to herself. In any case, when the millionaire Claude Arkel offers the couple a place to stay for the winter, they eagerly accept. Almost immediately, though, things seem to be off. Arkel runs a school for wayward girls, and three students are missing. Meanwhile, there’s no sign of Arkel himself, and with the Spanish flu raging in the outside world, the Forts are stuck in quarantine. Bakis’ latest novel has the pacing and suspense of a smart literary thriller: It’s almost impossible to put down once you’ve started it. But Bakis can be heavy-handed in her treatment of the themes that undergird her story—in this case, women who support ambitious men. That’s not to say Bakis’ case doesn’t hold water, but she strikes the same note again and again in a way that is more repetitive than satisfying. So, for example, when the Forts first arrive on Arkel’s island, and Charles observes that the grand house is “modeled on the Château de Chambord in the Val de Loire” and Anna responds, “I know, I’m the one who showed you the article,” the mansplaining moment isn’t nearly as funny as it was apparently intended to be; it's just frustrating, in a teeth-grinding way.
A smart and engaging literary thriller that bears down too hard on its themes.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781324093534
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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