Review: BLOOD BROTHERS, by Ernst Haffner

Blood Brothers, by Ernst Haffner. Published 2015 by Other Press. Originally published 1932, Verlag Bruno Cassirer. Literary Fiction. Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann.

Blood Brothers is both a historical curiosity and a portrait of desperation. Originally published in 1932 and banned by Hitler for reasons that are not entirely clear, it tells the story of a group of itinerant young men in Weimar Germany- teens and young adults scraping their way on the margins of society, in a society in which the poor, and crime, were not supposed to exist.

Writing about crime, and the poor, was therefore a rebellious act in and of itself. Author Ernst Haffner was a journalist and social worker, but not Jewish although his publisher was. What happened to him during World War 2 is not known. So the reasons for Hitler's ire probably have to do as much with the message as with the messenger. In any case what he left is this book, which reflects the chaos and uncertainty of a country at a crisis point- the last years before Hitler's rise to power- and life on the margins of that country.

The story follows a group of boys and young men who form a loose gang and do what they can to survive. The most harrowing sequence involves one boy's journey on the bottom of a train, and another boy telling him how to hold tight to the gears to avoid being crushed to death. From there the boys battle with the police, the system of incarceration and the loopholes in the law that can both keep them safe and keep them on the run. The individual characters are almost less important than the big picture, the race for survival. These kids want love, want something like a family, but mostly they just want to eat, and to get to tomorrow. Two of them manage to set up a little scheme involving refurbishing used shoes, but they know the wolf is always at their heels.

And it's on that kind of note that the book ends, cautiously optimistic but knowing danger is never far. I'd recommend Blood Brothers to readers interested in the period, in coming of age stories and stories about young men on the edge. It's unforgettable.

Rating: Backlist

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review.

Book Review: THE FALL, by Diogo Mainardi

The Fall: A Father's Memoir in 424 Steps, by Diogo Mainardi. Published 2014 by Other Press. Translated from Portuguese. Memoir.

The Fall is the author's memoir of his son Tito, who developed cerebral palsy following medical malpractice at an Italian hospital. It is, as blurb says, a history of the Western world with Tito at its center, as he is the center of his father's life. It is about acceptance, anger, and what "normal" means.  Tito's birth and all its attendant struggles is the consequence of a long line of "falls" and his life as an example of what it means to get back up.

Because falling is only one half of the story. There's also those 424 steps. For several years when Tito was a child and learning to walk, he fell constantly. His father would count the number of steps Tito could take without falling. 424 was the record number of literal steps that Tito took and the point at which his father stopped counting. Because as much as the book is about Tito's disabilities, it's also a love letter to his son and to that moment when Mainardi could let go and stop counting his son's steps, the moment when it became unremarkable for his son to walk.

Mainardi breaks the book into 424 sections, most very short, and intersperses personal memories with historical anecdotes and stories. He talks about art and architecture, about other people who lived with cerebral palsy, and about the Holocaust and how Hitler's program to exterminate the Jews started with exterminating the disabled.

He also raises the sensitive question of exploitation via a section about a politician who spoke publicly about his son's cerebral palsy and was criticized. In doing so he implicitly asks whether this book represents exploitation of Tito, I think. I don't think so. I think people are uncomfortable with illness and difference and often react by blaming their uncomfortable feelings on those doing the talking. Rather than deal with people who are different, and deal with their own discomfort, it's easier to point the finger and try to shut someone up with accusations like "exploitation.". I think as a writer and as a person,  Mainardi needs to talk about his son, and deserves to, with the same pride and love as any parent.

The thing I love most about this book, and the thing I'll take away with me, is when Mainardi talks about how Tito is "just a person I know," how when you love someone with a disability you don't think of the disability, you just think of the person as a person. This is so true to my experience. Whether or not you have experience with people with disabilities, I can't recommend Mainardi's memoir highly enough. There is so much compassion and love flowing through the pages of this marvelous book.

Rating: BUY!

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Other Press.

Review: CLIMATES, by Andre Maurois

Climates, by Andre Maurois. Published 2012 by Other Press. Literary Fiction. Translated from the French.

Climates was originally published in 1928 but not brought out in English until 2012. Author Andre Maurois was an acclaimed biographer, historian and writer who wore many hats; this novel is a somewhat melodramatic story of a marriage, or two marriages, each destined to founder due to nothing more than the vagaries of the human heart.

The novel is told in two parts, the first from the point of view of French industrialist Philippe Marcenat, who falls in love with the mercurial, beautiful Odile and makes her his wife. But the lively and changeable Odile can't content herself with bourgeois life. Philippe watches while she falls for another man and their childless marriage comes to an end. Philippe is devoted to Odile but is almost passive as she moves in society and takes a lover right under his nose.When she leaves him, it's almost like she was never there.

And yet she remains a strong presence in his life, a ghost who infects his subsequent relationships. The second part of the book is told from the point of view of Isabelle, Philippe's second wife, who could not be more different from the playful and outgoing Odile. Isabelle had a harsh childhood that has rendered her into an introverted and un-confident adult, a woman who dreads social engagement and wants above all to live a quiet life with her husband, whom she adores. She also watches her beloved fall into an affair with the very Odile-like Solange Villiers, a married woman and formidable society figure who does as she pleases, seeing her husband only a few weeks each year. But Isabelle isn't so passive as Philippe after all, and her fate is going to be different from either that of her husband or his first wife.

Climates is a very engaging and psychologically astute novel, about love and the sacrifices people are willing to make for their beloved and for their ideal of love, as well as how they handle the reality of love. It reminded me of a soap opera in that it is primarily about people who have little to do except worry about their love life, about women with little to occupy them to who turn to intrigue and gossip, and people who let their imaginations run wild with jealousy and the constant struggle to interpret their beloved's every word and action. It is a very romantic book in that it depicts the vagaries of romantic love, its moods and appetites and the different ways it shows itself. Solange Villiers is a very intriguing character, a sexually frank woman who controls her life rather than letting it be controlled, and such a contrast to either the girlish Odile or the pathologically timid Isabelle. Climates would be a wonderful literary beach book- smart and fluffy at the same time, perfect for daydreaming on a languorous summer's day when you don't have a care in the world.

Rating: BEACH

FTC Disclosure: I received this book from Other Press.

REVIEW: Drowned, by Therese Bohman

Drowned, by Therese Bohman. Published 2012 by Other Press. Literary Fiction. Translation.

If you're in the mood for a good, atmospheric, genuinely scary domestic mystery, you need to pick up Drowned, the debut thriller by Swedish editor and columnist Therese Bohman. Set in an idyllic countryside summer home in a tranquil wood where adders nonetheless slither through the grass, Drowned is the creep-out read of the summer.

Young Marina is visiting her older sister Stella and Stella's boyfriend at their country house filled with books, flowers, wonderful food and music. Stella is a horticulturalist who grows lovely orchids; Gabriel, the boyfriend, is older, a famous writer stalled on his current work. Here, Marina can let go of the worries of her own failed relationship and discontented career and indulge in a kind of fantasy life. But it soon becomes clear that Gabriel and his relationship with Stella are deeply flawed. A kind of closed-up, hothouse feeling takes over as Marina becomes sexually involved with the mercurial Gabriel. And tragedy strikes.

Drowned is a really quick read, deceptively so. Bohman writes incredibly descriptive, atmospheric prose; you can feel every sensation Marina feels, and yet at the same time she writes Marina's emotional life with detachment, almost blankness, as if to bring to life Marina's alienation and distance from the events going on around her. It's like she's sleepwalking through her life with Gabriel and Stella, or like she's underwater looking up at the surface and unable to understand what she's seeing. But we understand, little by little, the devastating scene unfolding.

If you liked things like Await Your Reply or Gone Girl, Drowned should be next on your list.

Rating: BACKLIST

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Absolutist, by John Boyne

The Absolutist, by John Boyne. Published 2012 by Other Press. Literary Fiction.

The Absolutist is a very fine novel about war, the affects of trauma in its various forms, the definition of cowardice and bravery and the attempt of one man to make peace with some very serious and irreversible decisions he made literally under fire. It's about forgiveness, the inability to forgive, and acts that by their very permanence can never be forgiven. It's also about families broken forever and lives change irrevocably.

The story starts in 1919, when a young man named Tristan Sadler (that's a lot of sadness) goes to Norwich to meet the sister of his very close friend Will, who was killed in the trenches of World War 1. Tristan and Will meet during basic training. Neither is particularly eager for war but Will, who comes from a loving family, wants to do his part. Tristan's family has disowned him; military service is a kind of last-resort suicide mission for him. Their friend Wolf is a "feather man," a conscientious objector who believes it's wrong for governments to order men to kill each other. Wolf's fate is the first nail in the coffin of Will's, and of the complete breakdown of Tristan and Will's relationship. By the time the war is over and Tristan is home, memories and secrets are all he has, and he gives these up to Marian, Will's sister, over tea one day in September.

Tristan starts the novel experiencing post-traumatic stress and the dissociation common with returning soldiers. He holds life at a distance and Boyne communicates that distance through over-precise and cautious prose. I found the novel a little difficult and almost unapproachable in its first sections until I realized that this effect is most likely deliberate. It is interesting to note that Boyne writes the present-day sections of the book in the past tense, and the sections taking place in the past, or during the war, in the present tense, as if it were those events of the war that still hold the most immediacy for Tristan and therefore for the reader. I don't want to tell you too much about Tristan's secrets; if you decide to read this book, and I hope you do, let them roll out the way Boyne intends. They're not all surprising; I guessed the reason for the disowning both accurately and quickly. But the final blow knocked the wind out of me and changed the whole book in an instant. I love it when an author does that.

The Absolutist is not a happy book and it doesn't have a happy ending, but it's haunting and eloquent and beautiful nonetheless. Boyne asks some tough questions and doesn't always answer them the way you think he will. Tristan has a lot to answer for, a lot to atone for, and it's not clear he ever really does. Is he doing Marian a favor by sharing his secrets with her, or is too much to ask? Should some things be left buried? Does it do him any good to let it all out? This is a challenging book and not a light read at all. But it's worth it.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, by Jan-Philipp Sendker

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, by Jan-Philipp Sendker. Published 2012 by Other Press. Literary Fiction. Translated from the German by Kevin Wiliarty.

As a bookseller, my job is to sell books to customers, but almost just as often they sell books to me. I'll start to talk to a customer about a book he or she is looking at, and before I know it I'm hearing all about how that book is a favorite of hers or his, and how I should read it right away. Such was the case with Jan-Philipp Sendker's lovely The Art of Hearing Heartbeats; the customer told me it was the perfect light love story, just delightful. Of course it didn't hurt that the customer in this case was the woman who heads the house that published it, so of course I was going to take her advice and get the book!

And right she was. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats marks German author Jan-Philipp Sendker's English-language debut, and it is a charmer. It's the story of a young woman named Julia whose enigmatic Burmese father has disappeared, and she's taken off to Burma to find him with no more than a mysterious love letter to a woman named Mi Mi for guidance. What she learns surprises her, angers her, moves her and finally changes her.

Julia's father, born Tin Win and orphaned young, never wanted to talk about the first twenty years of his life. His American wife and daughter knew an intensely private man who loved them but kept them at a distance; when he left them he destroyed what remained of their family, and Julia is filled with rancor. She wants to confront him, ask him why and get an answer. She finds out that his life was something she never imagined, that Mi Mi was also something different from the temptress she and her mother made her out to be, and that his fate is almost enough to break her heart.

More than that I don't want to say because the pleasure of the book is letting these lives unfold on the page. I sort of wish Sendker had told Tin Win's story without Julia; she didn't add much and I wish I could tell writers that it's okay to tell a story like this one without some modern American person as a framing device. Readers can handle people from the past or people from other cultures speaking for themselves, and those modern characters always seem to come loaded with modern baggage, pop psychology rants and other nonsense that distracts from the main thrust of the story.

Besides that I really enjoyed the tenderness and the sweet love story that develops, as well as its tear-inducing ending. The writing is fluid and the plot moves along smoothly. It's definitely a literary hammock book, perfect armchair travel for a sunny summer day. I think lots of readers would enjoy this very enjoyable book.

Rating: BEACH

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Secret in Their Eyes, by Eduardo Sacheri

The Secret in Their Eyes, by Eduardo Sacheri. Published 2011 by Other Press. ISBN 9781590514504.

The Secret in Their Eyes got my attention because it promised a riveting crime thriller combined with a moving love story and it delivers on both counts.

Set in Argentina in the 1970s, Eduardo Sacheri's book tells the story of a gruesome rape and murder and its lingering aftermath in the lives of an investigator, a judge, the victim's husband and the killer. Benjamin Chapparo is retiring from a long career as a court clerk; he decides to write a book about the killing of a beautiful young woman and at the same time renews a friendship with Irene Hornos, a judge he has been in love with for years. The story alternates the past with the present, the story of the crime with the story of writing about it.

Benjamin is hit hard by the horrific crime, and by the toll it takes on her devoted, loving husband, and, unsatisfied with the lack of interest in solving it shown by his office, he undertakes his own investigation, assisted by his best friend and coworker. The two of them make a colorful, unlikely detective pair but they find the killer and get him convicted. However, Benjamin has made some enemies along the way and the country's political corruption and along with a personal vendetta get in the way of justice. At least, that's the way it seems to Benjamin, until he learns the shocking truth years later, leaving him with even more disturbing questions to ask of those he thought he knew.

It's a terrific book. I will admit the present-day side of the story had a little less urgency for me but I never got bored. The cast of characters coupled with the challenges they face make for really compelling and emotionally involving reading. I'd recommend The Secret in Their Eyes to readers who like a good dark crime novel mixed with politics, love, and an ending I guarantee you will not see coming.

Click here and I'll tell you about the Oscar-winning 2009 film which might even be better than the book.

Rating: BUY

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The Secret in Their Eyes
by Eduardo Sacheri

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FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

REVIEW: The Vices, by Lawrence Douglas

The Vices, by Lawrence Douglas. Published 2011 by Other Press. Literary Fiction.

What a tangled web we weave...

In The Vices, everyone has a secret. They have secrets from their secrets, and secrets from themselves. Oliver Vice is dead. He fell of the side of a cruise ship, probably a suicide, although there isn't much about Oliver's life that would suggest a reason to end it. He's rich, good-looking and successful, an admired philosopher and published writer with a secure position at a prestigious college. And he has one stunning woman in his life after another.


Those family secrets, though, they do have a way of festering. Oliver has a number of vices- as does his family- and our narrator, a clean cut guy with more quotidian problems, makes it his mission to ferret them out, come what may. Voyeur-style, the narrator bears witness to Oliver's peccadilloes and relationships, his accomplishments and his failures. An outsider to Oliver's world, an American Jew dipping his toe in European-Christian high society, the narrator is awestruck, and besotted.

There's a lot to hold his interest. Oliver's mother, Francizka, is a glamorous, domineering matriarch with a somewhat unsavory relationship with her son Bartholomew ("Mew"), Oliver's fraternal twin. Her home is immaculate and filled with valuable treasures but it's an open question how many of them will turn out to be fakes and forgeries. She worships her sons, who, for all their potential and brilliance, always seem to come up short in the way of actual accomplishments. She tells stories about herself and her first husband that don't withstand scrutiny and seems perpetually engaged in the wheedling of money from someone or something else to herself. I could read an entire book devoted to this fascinating, toxic and contradictory woman.

As for Oliver, he has a bizarrely chaste relationship with a woman named Jean whom he visits periodically in the company of whomever else he happens to be dating. His sad affair with one, poor Sophia, is the closest thing to normal this emotionally vacant man will ever know. He even manages to disrupt the narrator's own marriage to the very conventional Melissa without anyone being quite able to say why or what happened. After a brilliant start, his career founders, and his death just raises more questions, and more ghosts.

All in all, The Vices adds up to a colorful, suspenseful tale of a wealthy family living on lies and little else. I flipped the pages eagerly as the narrator's search reached its conclusion; I won't say the final reveal was predictable but I can't say it was a big surprise, either, given everything that comes ahead of it. Oliver himself struck me as somewhat drab and dysfunctional, unworthy of the fascination the narrator has for him. I felt like the narrator was compensating for his own dull life by investing so much in this strange and remote family, whose truths, while tragic, are made of the sad remains of the old world trying to escape to the new. Douglas has crafted an intriguing, fascinating hall of mirrors, an elegant, entertaining literary suspense about the tragedies of the 20th century and its lingering aftermath.

Rating: BUY



FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Other Press.

REVIEW: A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear, by Atiq Rahimi

A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear, by Atiq Rahimi. Published 2011 by Other Press.Translated from Dari.

Filmmaker, teacher and activist, Atiq Rahimi has made his name in the literary world with short, surreal novels about people struggling to survive in his shattered native country of Afghanistan, and his latest, A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear, is sure to please his many fans.

His first book to be released by Other Press, The Patience Stone, is the revolutionary story of a woman left alone with her dying husband; it won the Prix Goncourt and established Rahimi as someone to watch. The next book, Earth and Ashes, follows a father searching for his son. This latest novel tells the story of Farhad, a young man trying to escape Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and resist the lure of forbidden love. It's probably my favorite of his books, and I loved all of them.

The reason I like Thousand Rooms the most is that it has the clearest and most linear plot and lots of characters. Rahimi's books are like gorgeous prose-poems, seductive and absorbing and lush, but sometimes it's easy to lose track of what's actually happening. Often, he focuses on a sole protagonist cut off from society in some way, and the reader gets locked inside the individual consciousness of that character. Then plot seems secondary to mood and thought. And that's fine, but I read for story and when a poetic, beautifully-written novel with fascinating characters also has a compelling story, I'm hooked.

And I was hooked on A Thousand Rooms. All of his books are suspenseful in their own way, especially Patience Stone, but like I said, Thousand Rooms is my favorite for having a strong central plot. I'd recommend it to his fans first and foremost but if you're new to Rahimi Thousand Rooms is a great place to start. Then, if you like it, move on to his more meditative and dream-like books. I hope you get as hooked on him as I am.

Links above are to my reviews.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Other Press.

REVIEW: Enough About Love, by Hervé le Tellier

Enough About Love, by Hervé le Tellier. Published 2011 by Other Press. Literary Fiction. Translated from the French.

Enough About Love is a frothy French novel about a series of interlocking love stories, set in contemporary Paris among an intellectual clique of writers, artists, psychoanalysts and academics. It's light and fun and sweet, even if some of the romances veer towards the bittersweet in the end.

The narrative alternates between the characters; Thomas, the psychotherapist, is in love with Louise, a chic attorney married to an academic. Anna is a doctor and Thomas's patient; she's in love with Yves and cheating on her husband Stan. And they have children and complications, and some relationships work out better than others.

The fun of Enough About Love is following these characters and their adventures- their passions, their heartbreaks and their quiet moments, too.  They're not all sympathetic; I found Anna to be shallow and vain, an emotionally distant object of affection for both her husband and her lover. Louise, on the other hand, I found delightful, and her romance with Thomas was tender and sweet. It's the two women who really drive the book; the men seem to merely trail behind them.

Enough About Love is a great example of one of my favorite unofficial literary genres- the beach book for the reader of literary fiction. The book has about it a very European, very French feel; Paris and rituals of French life soak through every aspect of the book. I can't imagine it taking place in any other city and there were times when I could almost see the dresses as I read about one of Anna's shopping trips and feel the warmth coming off a cup of cocoa. Read it if you want a love story as buttery and flaky as a croissant and as rich as that cocoa.

Rating: BEACH

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Publisher Spotlight Other Press: REVIEW- By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan

By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan. Published 2010 by Other Press. Literary Fiction.

Mitchell James Kaplan's novel By Fire, By Water is an absorbing and engaging work of historical fiction about the conversos of Inquisition-era Spain- conversos being Jews who converted to Christianity (Catholicism) and either may or may not continue to practice Judaism in secret.

At this time, the Catholic Church was a powerful political and military as well as spiritual force, and allegiance to the Pope was as much about ensuring one's physical safety as it was about what one believed in; Jews in many countries were persecuted, uprooted or forcibly converted, and those who refused could suffer for it if their government didn't protect them. By Fire, By Water focuses on one such converso, Luis de Santangel, a real historical figure of medieval Spain and confidant of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella; he was also pivotal in convincing them to support Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage.

This story covers more personal ground. Santangel starts to struggle with identity as a Christian and wants to reconnect with his Judaism and Jewish culture; to this end he starts to cast about for others like him who might be able to provide a sense of community or just a place to practice a little, however secretly. But during the Inquisition this kind of thing could bring serious consequences for not only the practitioner but the practitioner's family, and it's not long before Santangel, his son and his brother begin to feel pressured. But not all Jews live under this close scrutiny; others, like silversmith Judith Migdal, are protected and can live openly. Santangel is captivated by Migdal and they have a relationship; she is a strong and appealing woman who I wish I'd seen more of in the book. As the story progresses, Kaplan shows us how these forces come together and affect Santangel's family, for better and for worse.

By Fire, By Water is very good historical fiction. Kaplan's research shows without calling attention to itself, and the fictionalized aspects of the story flow well. I liked his depictions of different kinds of Jews- those practicing openly, those practicing secretly, and those who don't even know that they're practicing- and seeing the Jewish characters interacting with their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Kaplan creates a vivid community peopled by varied characters of different social strata and backgrounds. If you read and enjoyed any of Maggie Anton's Rashi's Daughters series you'll find  yourself on familiar ground. The writing is florid and highly descriptive but not overmuch; Kaplan strikes a good balance between the era he's writing about and the era he's writing for. I'd recommend it to readers of historical fiction and Jewish books, and anyone who likes a good story well told.

Come back tomorrow for my interview with Kaplan, the final installment in this week about Other Press!

RATING: Backlist

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Posts in Other Press Week:

• Publisher Spotlight on Other Press: Introduction,
• Sunday: Interview with Publisher Judith Gurewich,
• Monday: Review of The Wrong Blood, by Manuel de Lope,
• Tuesday: Review of The Debba, by Avner Mandelman,
• Wednesday: Interview with Avner Mandelman,
• Thursday: Review of By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan.
• Friday: Interview with Mitchell James Kaplan

Publisher Spotlight Other Press: REVIEW- The Debba, by Avner Mandelman

The Debba, by Avner Mandelman. Published 2010 by Other Press. Fiction. Crime Fiction.

Nominated this year for Canada's prestigious Giller Prize, Avner Mandelman's novel The Debba is a web of contradictions. A tight thriller about messy relationships and an unresolved past, it's the story of David Starkman, an Israeli who's emigrated to Canada, renounced his Israeli citizenship and tried to leave his former life behind. But it's all brought back in a flash when his father is found murdered in his Jerusalem shoe shop and David must return to Israel to confront his, and his father's demons.

First, he must deal with the fact of his father's death and murder; compelled to solve the murder and convinced that it's tied to his father's past in the Israeli army and his relationship with an enigmatic figure known as "the Debba," an Arab hero who disappeared after David's father captures him, David immerses himself in his father's story. In folk lore, a debba is a mythical hyena who can turn into a man;  it's also the title of a play David's father has written and which he insists in his will David must produce in order to inherit. The play has only been performed once before, when it caused a near-riot, and David must endure physical threats, the anger of his friends and even the opposition of the police and military to put the play on.

His return to Israel also puts him in the sphere of Ruthie, the woman he left behind (and his best friend's fiancée)- and their passion is reignited with animal ferocity. David also must uncover secret after secret about his father, his father's work and the mysterious Debba himself. In the end David has to ask himself searing questions about his identity and his future. But there is a lot standing in his way- powerful forces that want him to leave the past alone.

Politically The Debba does not take sides but rather forces the reader to ask questions and re-examine his or her own beliefs. I found the book's politics fascinating and complex. Other themes treated in the book include assimilation and Jewish identity and the meaning of inheritance. Mandelman's writing throughout is brisk and punchy. Israel is presented as a chaotic landscape where human behavior operates at a basic animal level. Nobody simply talks; people hiss and snarl and spit, and love is something brutish and wild. Literature and poetry can bring people together in unexpected ways in this hostile universe, and hide a lifetime's worth of secrets.

I found The Debba to be an irresistible literary pageturner and I'd recommend it to readers interested in Israel and contemporary Jewish writing that doesn't offer easy answers or pat reassurances.  It's not a book for everyone but I think if you do decide to give it a go, it'll draw you in and keep you reading right till the end.

Come back tomorrow for an interview with The Debba author Avner Mandelman.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Posts in Other Press Week:

• Publisher Spotlight on Other Press: Introduction,
• Sunday: Interview with Publisher Judith Gurewich,
• Monday: Review of The Wrong Blood, by Manuel de Lope,
• Tuesday: Review of The Debba, by Avner Mandelman,
• Wednesday: Interview with Avner Mandelman,
• Thursday: Review of By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan.
• Friday: Interview with Mitchell James Kaplan

Publisher Spotlight Other Press: REVIEW- The Wrong Blood, by Manuel de Lope

The Wrong Blood, by Manuel de Lope. Published by Other Press, 2010. Literary fiction. Translated from the Spanish.

The Wrong Blood is a luminous, marvelous novel from Spanish writer Manuel de Lope, about secrets, women and war, and what people will do to recapture their lost love and lost innocence.

Set during and after the Spanish Civil War, The Wrong Blood is the story of two women. Maria Antonia Extarri is a working-class girl, daughter of a bar owner, who is raped by a group of visiting soldiers; she's sent out to work in a series of large homes. A smart girl and a quick study, she learns a full set of domestic skills. When her baby is born she leaves her employer and settles in the home of wealthy widow Isabel Cruces, whose husband and great love has died during the war, executed as a traitor.  Years later, Isabel's grandson Miguel returns to the family home to study for law exams. Isabel has died left the house and all her money to Maria, who runs it like a solitary fiefdom. The local doctor, an older man well acquainted with the family, tries to befriend the young law student. Little by little, through the doctor's narration, we learn the family's sad history and the secret that binds the two women.

Beautifully written, very moving and very tender, The Wrong Blood is a character-driven and atmospheric story of full-blooded characters with complex psyches and drives. It will remind many readers of the rich family chronicles and passionate love stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and even has some of the gothic elements of Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The sequence detailing Isabel's childbirth and delivery in an iconic dark and stormy night is almost a ghost story,  harrowing and vivid. The story of Isabel's marriage and widowhood are lovely and sad. The doctor's own stories and memories add a fascinating layer of tragedy and bittersweet irony, and Isabel's protean personality adds an unpredictable variable to the story.

The Wrong Blood is definitely a must-read for literary readers and is recommended also for readers interested in historical fiction, Spanish fiction and the fiction of war. (This edition includes a helpful introduction elucidating the basic facts of the war.) Even though very little of the story takes place on the battlefield, it's still about people whose lives are turned upside down by war in one way or another. It's also about class and the privileges afforded to and taken away from people, women especially, at different levels of society, and the things one has to live with and without. Maria and Isabel are enigmatic people, their inner lives held at a distance; this sense of remoteness makes the story all the more moving since the reader has to use his or her own empathy and imagination to understand them. It's a lovely book, literary fiction at a very high level and well worth the effort to read.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Other Press.

Posts in Other Press Week:

• Publisher Spotlight on Other Press: Introduction,
• Sunday: Interview with Publisher Judith Gurewich,
• Monday: Review of The Wrong Blood, by Manuel de Lope,
• Tuesday: Review of The Debba, by Avner Mandelman,
• Wednesday: Interview with Avner Mandelman,
• Thursday: Review of By Fire, By Water, by Mitchell James Kaplan.
• Friday: Interview with Mitchell James Kaplan

REVIEW: Earth and Ashes, by Atiq Rahimi

Earth and Ashes, by Atiq Rahimi. Published 2010 by Other Press. Literary Fiction. Translation.

Afghan writer, director and activist Atiq Rahimi doesn't so much write novels as prose poems; his books have a power to affect his readers disproportionate to their small size. Earth and Ashes is a slim novella about an Afghan man, a grandfather named Dastaguir, urgently seeking to find his son Murad after his village has been bombed and his entire family, save Murad's son Yassin, has been killed. But the blast has left Yassin deaf and Dastaguir must navigate a confusing landscape bearing the tragedy of his shattered family to Murad, now working in the mines. What he finds isn't quite what he expects.

Earth and Ashes is short enough to read in one sitting but if I were you I'd take two to savor and pick through Rahimi's delicate prose and careful storytelling. Rahimi's economic use of language allows him to create a small but vivid cast of characters, especially Dastiguir and Yassin, who come to life and force their way into your heart. I don't know much about the Russian invasion of Afghanistan but I could feel for this lost old man trying to piece together what's left of his family and his overwhelming grief at losing his wife and family, and his dread of facing his son who toils ignorant of what's just happened. The reader will feel his pain every difficult step of the way.

Rahimi's work is accomplished literary fiction of a very high order and I'd recommend it for readers looking for an emotional experience with a very intelligently-written novel of feelings and ideas. Other Press also published an English translation of his Prix-Goncourt winning The Patience Stone, a similarly tightly-written masterpiece. Literary fiction readers and those interested in the specific social and political issues he writes about will absolutely want to pick up Earth and Ashes but Rahimi is the kind of writer who should be read by everybody.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from the publisher.

REVIEW: The Patience Stone, by Atiq Rahimi

The Patience Stone, by Atiq Rahimi. Published 2010 by Other Press. Translated from the French.

Winner of the 2008 Prix Goncourt in France, where it was originally published, Atiq Rahimi's little masterpiece The Patience Stone is a stunning, powerful novel. Taking place entirely inside a single room somewhere in Afghanistan, it tells the story of a nameless woman taking care of a man, her husband, returned from a nameless war and virtually comatose. Also there, in the background, are her two daughters. The woman reminisces about her girlhood, her married life and her future. She makes confessions and tells her secrets, and fantasy and reality weave together and come apart.

The Patience Stone is one of those books that's easy to read in one sitting but it takes more than that to see past the obvious emotional reaction and into its dense and finely crafted structure. It could be seen as a stage play; narration like "She leaves the room, inspects the whole house" sounds like stage direction and there is a temptation to visualize the novel as a play as one is reads. But it's really more cinematic; time shifts back and forth and though she can't travel physically, she escapes her confinement through memories and stories that take on a layered, dreamlike quality. Rahimi, speaking recently at Harvard University, talked about having listened to music as he wrote his book, to add that emotional experience to his writing. It's quite beautiful.

Written as a statement on the situation of women in Afghanistan, The Patience Stone can be dark and somewhat difficult and the novel's brevity belies its emotional impact. For me it was like a long, lovely prose poem with an ending that surprised and saddened me. I'm still not sure what exactly happened, to be honest, but life is like that a lot of the time. You can't know everything. But sometimes a hint is all you need. The Patience Stone offers a glimpse into the heart of a woman and the heart of a country.

Rating: BUY

Click here for a post on Rahimi's recent talk in Cambridge. It was one of the best author events I've been to in a while and deserves its own spotlight.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review from the publisher.

REVIEW: Isaac's Torah, by Angel Wagenstein

Isaac's Torah, by Angel Wagenstein. Published 2008 by Other Press. Translated from the Bulgarian.

Isaac's Torah is a gently bittersweet comic novel, about one Isaac Blumenfeld, a man who lives through disaster after disaster as history happens to his village of Kolodetz in Eastern Europe. He lives through the fall of the Austrian empire, the rise of the Soviet Union and the atrocities of World War 2 and the Holocaust, trying to hold on to his friends, his family and his sanity. He succeeds and fails to varying, and tragic, degrees.

Isaac's sense of humor- and in no small measure, sense of the absurd- buoys him throughout. Isaac's jokes and metaphors are present throughout the story, to explain, clarify and offer perspective; it's also a deeply cultural and characteristic element of his storytelling, to explain things via folktales and family stories and comes from the rich tradition of teaching through storytelling. Explaining his naivete at the beginning, Isaac says he was ignorant because he hadn't eaten enough herring heads, and goes on to tell the story of a Jew who sells some herring heads to a Pole, claiming that eating herring heads will make the Pole smarter. "Five heads for five rubles," the Jew says, and the Pole agrees. As he eats the herring heads, the Pole changes his mind: "Why did you charge me one ruble per head when a kilo of herring costs half a ruble?" "'Don't you see', says the Jew, 'how you're already getting smarter?'" "So my point," Isaac continues, "is that wisdom comes with experience, in other words, with the quantity of herring heads eaten, if you know what I mean."

Isaac will need his sense of humor as he falls in love and marries, loses his family and suffers mightily through the years, and the book is peppered with asides and jokes like this one. He divides his story into five sections, why the book is his so-called Pentateuch or Torah. By his side is the redoubtable Rabbi Shmuel Ben-David, his best friend and closest confidant, whose adventures and turmoils act as commentary if you will, to Isaac's own.

I really enjoyed Isaac's Torah and found it to be a rich and rewarding read. Isaac is very likable and the way he experiences events on such a close, personal level brings the sweep of 20th century European history into perfect focus. I love how Wagenstein shows all of his characters adjusting to the shifting political sands. Isaac's story is Europe's story and the Jewish story in microcosm and I think readers interested in these topics would enjoy the novel. Readers familiar with Jewish folklore and storytelling will appreciate that aspect of the novel and Isaac's unique voice. I read the novel in translation (it was originally written in Bulgarian) and found it fluid and accessible but I can't help but wonder what I'm missing, unable as I am to taste Wagenstein's Yiddishized Bulgarian original. But I'm glad I read it anyway, and I hope you do, too.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review from the publisher.