GÖTZ AND MEYER
David Albahari (trans. Ellen Elias-Bursac), Harcourt, 2005, $23.00, hb, 169pp, 0151011419; Pub in the UK by Vintage, 2005, £6.99, pb, 144pp, 0099461730
It is rare that a slim book can wield such emotional impact, but Götz and Meyer is small in page-length alone; the weight of its contents is heavy and heartbreaking. Götz and Meyer are two German SS non-commissioned officers who were assigned to drive a truck in which, over a period of weeks, they gassed to death 5,000 Jewish inmates of a Belgrade concentration camp. The nameless narrator of this story is a Jewish teacher in post-Cold War Belgrade; he imagines the lives of Götz and Meyer in an effort to come to terms with the murder of many of his relatives. Who were these two men, and what did they think of, if ever they thought of, the task assigned them?
As the narrator delves into the past, his obsession with discovering the truths of the lives lost in Belgrade begins to take its toll on his own health. The anonymous narrator re-creates the daily routines of the officers and the
victims, holds imaginary conversations with Götz and Meyer, and wonders at who his family members were. Serbian novelist Albahari’s stream of consciousness narrative is a tale begun in a detached voice, dispassionately describing the gassing of the Jews; this voice grows more involved and consumed with the past as the story progresses. The narrator’s efforts to understand are painfully honest: “There is no comfort in death, the woman I met at the Jewish Historical Museum said, especially not in a death that someone else chooses for you. I wasn’t thinking of them, I shouted, but of myself, because those small consolations are the only weapons with which I can stand up to the meaningless and horrible void filling the faces of Götz and Meyer.” Haunting, lyrical, stunningly moving, and devastating. Highly recommended. -- L.K. Mason

INTOXICATED: A Novel of Money, Madness, and the Invention of the World's Favorite Soft Drink
John Barlow, Morrow, 2006, $24.95/C$32.95, hb, 354pp, 0060591765
Yorkshire, 1869. En route from France by train, Isaac Brookes nearly kicks a bunch of smelly rags out the door of his compartment only to find a hunchback dwarf within its folds. Enter Rodrigo Vermillion, con artist and inexhaustible devisor of marketing ploys. This bizarre synchronicity launches these two disparate men on an adventure that will revolutionize the world. And will give Victorians a new alternative to alcohol and tea: Rhubarilla!
This effervescent tale of the madness runs in parallel lines of reality and the surreal. Isaac’s weird encounter with the charismatic Rodrigo inspires him to retire from his wool factory in France and return to England, where he reunites with his two dysfunctional sons and kind but ailing wife, Sarah. As this strange family begins to fall apart fueled in part by drink, they also unite in a common goal: to discover the perfect soft drink. Obsessed with rhubarb as a main ingredient, they experiment with nuts and spices to cover the taste adding extract of coca-leaf to give it a "twist." However, their success only explodes with the rise of the Temperance Movement, which puts Rhubarilla in top demand in Yorkshire and over in the United States.
Beneath the madcap tone of this exuberant tale runs a thread of life’s truths and families’ woes all bottled up in bizarre fashion. A great historical spoof from a highly imaginative writer. -- Tess Allegra

THE PALE BLUE EYE
Louis Bayard, John Murray, 2006, £14.99, hb, 415pp, 0719567033
Pub. in the US by HarperCollins, 2006, $24.95/C$32.95, hb, 411pp, 0060733977 ‘April 19, 1831. In two or three hours… I’ll be dead.’ What an opening!
    Gus Landor is a New York City police constable living in retirement in New York State, alone since the death of his daughter. When a cadet is found hanged at the nearby West Point Military Academy, Landor is called in to solve the case. But no sooner has he begun his investigation than the corpse vanishes, only to reappear with the heart expertly cut out. Landor acquires an assistant in the form of cadet Edgar Allan Poe, who shows a flair for detective work and who relishes the menacing atmosphere surrounding an increasingly macabre sequence of events.
    This is crime fiction of a high order. The detectives are an intriguingly odd couple, Poe being a callow romantic while the more prosaic Landor comes across as an appealing sleuth, perceptive, intelligent, wryly humorous – and haunted by a mysterious tragedy. Bayard has captured the elegant writing style of the period without compromising his mastery of pace and tension as the mystery deepens. And just when the case appears to be resolved there’s a shocking twist that I, for one, didn’t see coming.
    I’m not a big fan of detective fiction, but if there were more crime novels as thrilling and satisfying as this, I’d rapidly be converted! --Sarah Cuthbertson

HOUSE OF ORPHANS
Helen Dunmore, Figtree, 2006, £17.99, hb, 330pp, 0670914517
Set in Finland in 1901, House of Orphans tells the stories of Eeva and Lauri, childhood friends separated by death and politics. Eeva grows up in an orphanage and is sent to work for a doctor, Thomas, who becomes obsessed with her. Lauri, influenced by the ideologue, Sasha, becomes involved in resistance to Russian rule and ultimately in a plot to assassinate the governor. It is a novel of obsessions, both personal and ideological showing how freedom fighters – or terrorists, depending on your viewpoint – become politicised by their personal experience rather than by nebulous theories.
As you would expect of Helen Dunmore, the prose is exquisite, full of wonderfully sensuous descriptions of food and gardens, children’s chubby calves encased in stout boots, a woman giving birth in a sauna, a silk patchwork quilt and enough different ways of describing snow to compete with the Inuit. The story begins at a leisurely pace building layer upon layer of minutely observed feelings and experiences in the way you might stack crepes or fold filo pastry. You are seduced almost without noticing, drawn into a world of brutal contrasts between duty and desire, love and politics, youth and age.
This is a wonderful novel, sharply observed with every word made to count and every image constructed to make the reader think; as much a parable for today as an account of an historical period. Highly recommended.
-- Sarah Bower

THE FIRST CASUALTY
Ben Elton, Bantam, £17.99, hb, 381pp, 0593051114
In 1917 England was not only fighting the Great War in France but was also witnessing a period of industrial unrest at home. Socialism was rising not only in the country but also amongst the soldiers at the front. The French army had mutinied after Verdun, and the Allies were awaiting the arrival of the Americans, who were slow in committing themselves to the cause of halting the German advance.
In a Europe gone mad, it was only Inspector Douglas Kingsley of Scotland Yard who disapproved of the War, believing it to be destroying the very Britain being fought for. Imprisoned for his conscientious objection and labelled a coward, he is wanted dead by every criminal he jailed. Surprisingly released, he is sent to France during the third battle for Ypres to investigate the murder of a national hero. He finds himself conducting his enquiries through the hell of battle, where witnesses to the crime are quite literally disappearing into the mud of Flanders.
Ben Elton writes a flawless story of intellectual arrogance facing its worst nightmare whilst attempting to define a semblance of justice in the face of unimaginable daily slaughter. It seems unbelievable to us now what millions of men and a few women experienced during the years 1914-18, but Elton, through careful research, graphically reconstructs the horrors of the Western Front with an earthy eloquence. -- Gwen Sly

THE BOOK ABOUT BLANCHE AND MARIE
Per Olov Enquist (trans. Tiina Nunnally), Overlook, 2006, $24.95/C$33.00, hb, 224pp, 1585676683
To be pub. in the UK as The Story of Blanche and Marie, Harvill Secker, Oct. 2006, £16.99, hb, 288pp, 1843432331
Set in Paris during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, this quiet novel is a work of art. With every word, every phrase, the author draws you deeper and deeper into the world of Blanche Wittman and Marie Sklodowska Curie. Blanche was a young woman who first spent more than a decade in the Salpêtrière Hospital, where she served as a public model for Professor J.M. Charcot’s demonstrations of techniques to cure women of hysteria by hypnosis. After the professor’s death, she became Marie’s assistant in her lab, and fell victim to the radiation, resulting in multiple amputations.
The novel centres on notebooks belonging to Blanche, in which she explores the nature of love through her own and Marie’s experiences. But there is so much more. The author himself appears to be narrating much of the story, so we learn about his own life as well. He circles back to certain themes and incidents, slowly building to the resolution of a question raised in the mind of the reader early on. We meet a cast of interesting characters and become part of their world.
The story starts slowly enough, with the death of Blanche, then flashes back, with the aid of the notebooks, to tell how she came to live in an apartment with Madame Curie. From there the reader journeys through the hearts and souls of these women, neither of whom was lucky in love for more than a short time. Despite the pervading sadness, the narrative seduces the reader and celebrates the lives of two very unique women and their friendship.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. -- Teresa Basinski Eckford

THE HOUSE OF SCORTA
Laurent Gaudé, MacAdam/Cage, 2006, $23.00, hb, 285pp, 1596921595
Awarded France’s most prestigious literary prize, Le Prix Goncourt 2004, this novel has sold over 400,000 copies. After reading it, you will understand why. Each page mesmerizes, evoking deep emotion.
    In 1870 in southern Italy, an ex-convict rides into town on the back of a donkey, knowing the villagers will kill him to avenge the crimes he committed against them. There he rapes the woman he has longed to bed during his years in prison. But he has the wrong woman. Rocco Scorta is the bastard product of their union, a villain whose crimes rival those of his murdered father.
    Rocco marries a mute, a woman who can never speak or reveal his unlawful activities. The Mute bears him three children, Giuseppe, Carmela, and Domenico. Doomed from birth, the three, along with Raffaele, their brother at heart, are blessed with pride and a belief in their own potential. Together, they open a little tobacco shop and settle into a tumultuous life where true happiness eludes them. As the next generation is born, the family battles the malevolent legacy of their past and struggles to overcome the hardships of the present.
    Inspired by his love for Italy and stories of his wife’s family, Laurent Gaudé paints a vivid picture of life in a poor Italian village. He writes in an evocative prose, rich in quality and simplicity. He infuses his characters with villainous deeds and the burden of undisclosed lies. The pace is fast, and the characters always shock the reader by doing the unexpected. They are rash and make mistakes for which they suffer, yet they are endearing and believably unique.
    Books such as this are rare. Laurent Gaudé is a skilful writer who pushes the story into unpredictable twists and turns that will keep you enthralled to the very end. -- Mirella Patzer

THE WIDOW’S WAR
Sally Gunning, Morrow, 2006, $24.95/C$32.95, hb, 303pp, 0060791578
As a whaler’s wife living on Cape Cod in 1761, Lyddie Berry always knew the dangers. One windy January afternoon, when her cousins deliver the tragic news about Edward, Lyddie gathers her strength. She moves in with her daughter’s family, as society dictates she should, but her new life quickly becomes intolerable. Her money no longer her own, her belongings divided without her permission, Lyddie faces a bleak, lengthy widowhood with little more than knitting pins and chores for company. When Lyddie refuses to relinquish her freedom by deeding her house to her hostile son-in-law, her battle for autonomy begins in earnest. She moves back to her former home, the third of it she’s entitled to, even though it makes her the village embarrassment. Her only allies are her husband’s kindly lawyer, Eben Freeman, and her Indian neighbor, Sam Cowett. Each has his own plans for her. As she continues to break society’s rules, Lyddie falls ever deeper into disrepute. Eventually she must decide whether her supposed freedom is worth the shame.
I find it hard to describe this beautifully written work without delving into cliché. Though the bare-bones storyline may make it seem anachronistic, Lyddie belongs fully to her time even as she searches for her place within it. If you’ve ever been curious about the powerful strictures that controlled women’s lives in early America, or even if you haven’t, I urge you to read this book. Gripping, romantic, historically sound, and completely satisfying, The Widow’s War is a standout. I’ll be surprised if I read a better historical novel this year.
-- Sarah Johnson

THE WORLD TO COME
Dara Horn, Norton, 2006, $24.95/C$35.00, hb, 314pp, 0393051072
The World to Come is, quite simply, one of the best novels I have read in a long time. At the heart of the book is the story of the Ziskind twins, Ben and Sara. Ben, a former child prodigy, now writes questions for a quiz show and feels lonely after his wife of less than a year has left him. Sara, an artist, married to Ben’s Russian bar mitzvah “twin,” is expecting her first child. At a singles’ cocktail hour in a New York museum, Ben steals a Chagall painting which, he is certain, used to belong to his family. He persuades Sara to make a forgery that will convince the experts, so that he can send it to the museum in place of the original. Meanwhile, he discovers evidence that the “original” painting may have been a forgery itself.
In 1920s Russia, Boris, who will eventually become the grandfather of the Ziskinds, grows up in a Jewish orphanage where Chagall teaches art. His encounter with Chagall and his housemate, the Yiddish author Der Nister, sets in motion the story of the painting which will eventually belong to the Ziskinds. We follow Der Nister’s life in Soviet Russia, as his friend Chagall becomes world-famous while his own work is forgotten. Another thread tells of the horrifying experiences of the Ziskind twins’ father in the Vietnam War. The whole last chapter is an extended fable set in the “world to come,” a paradise inhabited by those not yet born and those who have died. Horn also retells various Yiddish stories throughout the book. But it is impossible to do justice to this multi-layered novel in such a short space. Horn tells a beautifully-written story which joins the threads into a seamless whole and which will stay with you long after you have finished. -- Vicki Kondelik

GATES OF PARADISE
Beryl Kingston, Allison & Busby, 2006, £18.99, hb, 255pp, 0749082429
In 1800 the poet William Blake and his wife, Catherine, move from London to the tiny rural community of Felpham, in Sussex. There they live until 1803, with William working all hours as an engraver whilst trying to find time for his poetry. Great favourites in the village, the locals are shocked when William is charged with sedition after forcefully ejecting a soldier from his garden. In spite of aristocratic intimidation young Johnnie Boniface, along with his beloved Betsy, rally together nine witnesses in support of William and one day in 1804 they crowd into the court in Chichester to give their evidence.
Nearly 50 years later Alexander Gilchrist arrives in the village intent on uncovering the truth behind the incident for his proposed biography of William Blake. Unaccountably, he meets a wall of resistance from the locals who remember the “mad” poet, made all the more peculiar because of the respect and fondness the elder villagers obviously had for the hard-working Blakes.
Told partly in flashback and partly in epistolary chapters, Gates of Paradise focuses on the three years the Blakes resided in Felpham and on the dramatic events leading up to the sedition charge. Beryl Kingston writes with such a lovely light-handed touch it is impossible not to warm to her novels. There are some great character studies, whether of the more eccentric or the more conventional locals, and a terrific mix of mystery and romance.
Although I’m not usually a fan of dialect rendered phonetically in dialogue, it would be petty to hold this against such a charming and kind-hearted novel.
-- Sara Wilson

THE MAN WHO WAS LOVED
Kay MacCauley, Telegram, 2006, £8.99, pb, 392pp, 1846590027
There’s something about Venice that defies conventional description and so does this enigmatic novel. Not so much a novel, it’s more a literary evocation of the continual shifting relationship between love, life and death. Kay MacCauley has the power to draw us into a different world and keep us enthralled.
    There is a narrative of sorts. We first meet Marin, as an abandoned infant, drifting between life and death in a Venice orphanage. He is then ‘rescued’ by one of the nuns who believes he’s her own dead child re-incarnated and so begins Marin's strange life. He grows into a beautiful youth but who exactly is he? Just as Death is portrayed as a genial shape-shifter who pushes his stinking handcart through the alleys and piazzas of the city, so Marin is not his own person but someone who reminds everyone he meets of someone they once loved and lost. When plague comes to the city and dead fish wash up to shore in their hundreds, the citizens seek a saviour. Could he be Marin? Yet he himself feels adrift from humanity, adrift from his own identity as he observes the comings and goings of those around him; fishermen, spice merchants, jugglers, beggars, rich, poor, sacred and profane. Sometimes he is destitute. At others he lives in luxury. But wherever he is and whatever he does, danger is never far away. Things can change as quickly as the rising tides.
    MacCauley writes like a profane angel. Sensuous and evocative, 16^th century Venice, with its decadent beauty and decay, soon gets under the skin. If I had any criticism it is its richness that threatens mental indigestion. But then this is a novel to savour and not gobble up. Whether it means something or nothing at all matters not. Let it surround you and draw you to your own conclusions.
    This is a stunning debut by a new writer and a new literary publisher. I expect more great things from both in the future. -- Sally Zigmond

CLOTH GIRL
Marilyn Heward Mills, Time Warner, 2006, £14.99, 480pp, hb, 0316731889
In the mid-1930s, naïve bride Audrey Turton travels to Ghana to join her colonial officer husband. At the same time, fourteen-year-old Matilda becomes the second wife of Robert Bannerman, a Cambridge-educated black lawyer. It is only when the two women’s lives become intertwined that either is able to come to terms with her changed circumstances.
    In this long and leisurely paced debut novel, Marilyn Heward Mills vividly recreates colonial Ghana in the years leading up to independence, contrasting the vibrant life of the Ghanaians with the suffocating formality of the colonial social round – club, cricket, Christmas pantomimes. Though Matilda comes from a large, traditional family, whose women dress in the bright cotton robes, or cloths, which give the book its title, her marriage to Robert removes her to a world which straddles these two, and the abiding enmity of Julie, Robert’s first wife, a black woman educated in England and presented at Court, who has abandoned traditional dress to become a “frock girl”.
    Matilda is deeply rooted in her background, and Mills dwells lovingly on the rich rituals of traditional cooking and dress-making, as well as Ghanaian ceremonies such as the door knocking betrothal ceremony and the outdooring of new babies. Matilda establishes her place in Robert’s heart by cooking for him, in contrast to Julie, whose western aspirations have removed her from the kitchen. But in spite of her pride in her identity, Matilda only finds true happiness in love with a white colonial administrator, and liberation from emotional dependence on a man through her friendship with Audrey, who teaches her English. Audrey, in turn, learns self-reliance from Matilda’s example in carving out a place for herself in Robert’s home.
   Though slow to get started, this is a charming, optimistic tale of two women emancipating themselves against the background of a country emerging from colonial domination. -- Sarah Bower

SUITE FRANÇAISE

Irène Némirovsky, Knopf, 2006, $25.00/$34.95, hb, 401pp, 0676977707

Pub. in the UK by Chatto & Windus, 2006, £16.99, hb, 416pp, 0701178965

Suite Française, an unfinished five-part epic that boldly illustrates the effect of the WWII German occupation on the ordinary people of France, really consists of three stories.
The first, “Storm in June,” portrays a handful of Parisians of different social classes (their characters intimately drawn) fleeing the city before the advancing German army. There’s lots of easy drama possible amid the horrors of a panicked mob, but this skilled author focuses on the intimate instead — the senseless struggle to maintain routines, and the small gestures of cruelty that are somehow more terrifying than bombs. The second story, “Dolce,” chronicles life in an occupied provincial village—with an sharp eye not only toward the simmering jealousies among town and farm people, aristocrats and bourgeoisie, but also on the nature of young women so long bereft of male company, and the tentative ease that grows between co-habitants, even if they are victor and vanquished. These are the only sections of the five-part project Irène Némirovsky completed, before the war touched home.

Thus, we have the third tale: Descended from a Russian Jewish family, Irène Némirovsky lived in France as a successful novelist when the Nazis invaded. In 1942, while writing this novel, she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Her Catholic husband tried to help her, but his efforts (achingly chronicled in an Appendix) led to his own execution. Their two young daughters went into hiding, dragging along a suitcase full of their mother’s papers. Decades later, one of the daughters opened that suitcase to discover Suite Française.

It’s a tragic story, all the more so because of the brilliance of the novel. Némirovsky was a master storyteller. Suite Française was her War and Peace: intimate, sharp-eyed, honest and compelling. It belongs on the shelf right next to The Diary of Anne Frank. -- Lisa Ann Verge

PURITY OF BLOOD
Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Putnam, 2006, $23.95, hb, 288pp, 0399153209
Pub. in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, £9.99, pb, 288pp, 0297848631
Diego Alatriste survives in the Spain of 1623 by taking commissions as a sword for hire while maintaining a firm sense of honor. This is the second of the series to appear in English, all featuring clashes of swords, daggers when at close quarters, and pistols when there is time to light the wick. Between fights, we have wonderful tableaux like the Prado Gardens, where women sell jars of fruit, lovers carry out assignations, and dandies display the wealth of the Empire. Another scene takes us to the enthusiastic crowd at an auto-da-fé on the Plaza Mayor.
The narrator, Iñigo Balboa, thirteen at the time of the action, looks back from the perspective of an old man, complaining that his country has been going steadily downhill. After being involved in a raid on a convent, young Iñigo falls into the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, incriminated by the woman he loves, the impossibly beautiful and consistently treacherous Angélica de Alqézar. Even as an old man, he continues to love her even though he knows that she is in hell “where she is surely a bright flame today.”
The translation by Margaret Sayers Peden preserves the flavor of the original by leaving some period words untranslated but glossed so that the reader understands them. A word like rúa is explained as a stylized social parade. Poems and pieces of poems appear frequently, a challenge that Peden meets with faithful verse translations that read well, often of works by Francisco de Quevedo, who appears as a friend of the captain. At least three more of these novels have appeared in Spanish, and all are scheduled to be translated eventually. The series is superb already and getting better.
--James Hawking

THE ROSE OF YORK: CROWN OF DESTINY
Sandra Worth, End Table Books, 2006, $14.95, pb, 176pp, 0975126482
In this sequel to the gripping The Rose of York: Love and War, Worth does a beautiful, and succinct, job of retelling the well-worn but no less horrific story of Edward IV’s fall from glory. Here, Worth focuses primarily on the temporarily successful manipulation of the entire Woodville clan to wrest power away from the Plantagenets and the ultimate succession of Richard III to the throne.
    Worth does justice to the story. While dosing it heavily with historical fact, she makes it absolutely pulse with human emotion. The Woodvilles are gruesome and hateful people. Richard and Anne, tied from childhood in a bond that knows no bounds of time or space, find each other again after being torn apart by political expedience and pure nastiness. Worth acknowledges the existence of a Kate Haute in Richard’s pre-Anne life – particularly of interest to me after reading and reviewing Anne Easter Smith’s memorable A Rose for the Crown for February’s issue. However, Worth rejects the hypothesis that Richard and Kate had a serious relationship and sloughs over the Kate-Richard affair as a mere dalliance producing two illegitimate children. It’s always fascinating to me how historical novelists employ similar materials and weave their stories so differently.
    Crown of Destiny, for all its brevity, is a deep and gripping read. Although it is not necessary to read Love and War beforehand, I feel that it gave me an opportunity to familiarize myself with Worth’s style and to immerse myself immediately into the story.
    The final installment in this series, Fall from Grace, is due out later this year. I’m going to grab that one as soon as I can. --Ilysa Magnus

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