Review by New York Times Review
FOREST DARK, by Nicole Krauss. (Harper/HarperCollins, $27.99.) Tracing the lives of two Americans in Israel, one a celebrated novelist and the other a successful older lawyer, this restless novel explores the mysteries of disconnection and the divided self, of feeling oneself in two places at once. UNBELIEVABLE: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History, by Katy Tur. (Dey St./William Morrow, $26.99.) Tur's breezy journalist's memoir is really a story of one woman's endurance. Donald Trump singled her out for particularly harsh insults at his political rallies, but she soldiered on, sometimes through dangerous situations. THE CRISIS OF MULTICULTURALISM IN EUROPE: A History, by Rita Chin. (Princeton, $35.) An associate professor of history at the University of Michigan analyzes the current debates in Europe over immigration and Western values to create a vivid picture of a continent consumed by social tensions. THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, by Brendan Mathews. (Little, Brown, $28.) Mathews's admirably fearless debut novel, about Irish brothers on the run in 1930s New York, is long and full of digression, which is no knock; for what is a good novel - or a good life - but a long series of digressions? A RIFT IN THE EARTH: Art, Memory, and the Fight for a Vietnam War Memorial, by James Reston Jr. (Arcade, $24.99.) The arguments over the construction of a Vietnam memorial were angrier even than current disputes over Confederate monuments, and Reston's narrative is insightful and unexpectedly affecting. AMONG THE LIVING AND THE DEAD: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe, by Inara Verzemnieks. (Norton, $26.95.) Verzemnieks's family history interleaves stories of the grandparents who left Latvia and raised her in Tacoma, Wash., and of her great-aunt who stayed behind. She also confronts Latvians' fraught participation in World War II. DINNER AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, by Nathan Englander. (Knopf, $26.95.) In a novel that gleefully blends thriller elements with sociohistorical considerations, a disgraced Israeli agent offers tragicomic reflections on the broken promises of the Promised Land. ONE DAY WE'LL ALL BE DEAD AND NONE OF THIS WILL MATTER, by Scaachi Koul. (Picador, paper, $16.) Koul's irreverent and funny essays explore the binds of being the child of immigrants, shuttling between Canada and India, between love and resentment. THE GOLDEN HOUSE, by Salman Rushdie. (Random House, $28.99.) The Obama years form the backdrop of this novel about a billionaire and his enigmatic family after they arrive in New York. Avoiding spoilers is tricky, but suffice it to say the body count is high. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 24, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
The dead return to visit the living, according to Latvian folklore. But in this elegiac book, it is author Verzemnieks who returns to the land her grandmother fled during WWII to explore the lives that were torn apart during those years. After the death of her grandmother, who raised her from a young age, Verzemnieks journeys back to Latvia, visiting with her grandmother's sister. The sisters' paths diverged when they were young and the war came to their village, her grandmother eventually making her way to the U.S. while her sister was exiled to Siberia. Slowly, Verzemnieks uncovers their stories, discovering the meaning behind the silence. Her grandmother's agonizing years waiting in a camp, while the U.S. debated whether to accept refugees, strike an especially resonant chord. Beyond the story of her own family, Verzemnieks offers a moving history of the Latvian people, oppressed for centuries, and their disappearing way of life. Spellbinding and poetic, this is a moving tribute to the enduring promise of home.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Upon a visit to her ancestral Latvia, Verzemnieks, who teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Iowa, vividly imagines the dramatic youth of her grandmother Livija, a farm girl. Verzemnieks follows the desperate flight of Livija and her two small children to a refugee camp in 1944, with her husband at war on the Russian front. Upon settling later into the Latvian community of Tacoma, Wash., Verzemnieks's grandparents reunite, have children and grandchildren, and raise the author following her parents' divorce; their presence alone helps keep their memories of their beloved homeland alive for the curious girl. "Words can become as real as anything we see with our eyes or feel with these hands," Verzemnieks writes. She describes how refugees ousted from their lands form the collective bond of community in their adopted countries. By combining the memories of Livija and her sister, Ausma, with her own powerful impressions of Latvia, Verzemnieks has created a stirring family saga of exiles rich with compassion, loss, perseverance, myth, superstition, and courage. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Verzemnieks's impressive work examines the refugee history of her grandmother's family with sensitivity and compassion. During World War II, her grandmother Livija is married, her husband fighting as a Latvian conscript, with one young daughter and a son born just days before violence consumes the capital city of Riga. Livija flees with both children and becomes one of the many war refugees seeking safety in the European countryside. Ultimately reunited with her husband, Livija and their now three children spend years in a refugee camp before finally receiving sponsorship in Tacoma and emigrating to the United States. Through her visits to Latvia, the author develops and strengthens bonds with an extended family she clearly relishes. The trips don't erase the suffering and anguish of the past, but they do offer hope of reconciliation and forgiveness. VERDICT For readers looking for parallels between historic and current events. Though Syria isn't mentioned, this book could have been written about what's happening today, rather than more than 70 years ago. (Memoir, 4/11/17; ow.ly/liks30c0Myo)-Rachael Dreyer, Eberly Family Special Collections Lib., Pennsylvania State Univ. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The Latvian world of her grandmother draws the writer, an American, back to the old country to re-create a vanished life between farm and war.In her striking debut memoir, Verzemnieks (Creative Nonfiction/Univ. of Iowa), winner of a Pushcart Prize and a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award, refashions the early life of her deceased grandmother Livija, who was born and raised on a farm in Gulbene, in eastern Latvia. She left her hometown to work in Riga as a bookkeeper and was subsequently caught up in the Soviet invasion and takeover of her country in World War II. Livija then left her homeland and came to the United States, where she was reunited with her soldier husband, who had been demobilized from the Latvian Legion, which was actually fighting for Nazi Germany against Russia. Livija and her family settled into the Latvian community of the former mill town of Tacoma, Washington. There, they raised their granddaughter, the author, after her parents got divorced and underwent mysterious crises, leaving the child in their care. The author became keenly aware of all aspects of the life Livija left behind, so much so that years later, when she actually visited her grandmother's homestead and grew friendly with her great-aunt, she was able to re-create in great detail this vanished life. Verzemnieks beautifully evokes the sympathy between Livija and her young granddaughter and the subsequent acquaintance between the author, now grown and married herself, and her great-aunt, who reluctantly revealed painful episodes of her past, such as the day the Russians arrived at the end of the war, ransacked the farmhouse, and deported her sister to a labor camp in Siberia. With fluidity and nuance, the author smoothly incorporates Latvian history into her narrative as well as the quietly buried sins of the past, such as the Latvian men's forced conscription to fight on the German side. A highly polished memoir of enormous heart. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
