Albom spins moving Holocaust tale
Mitch Albom’s books often capture the zeitgeist, but his new novel about the fate of Greek Jews during World War II packs a particular punch in the wake of the terrorist attacks Oct. 7 in Israel.
Inspired by what really happened to 50,000
Jewish people living in Greece during the Holocaust, “The Little Liar” tells the story of four interconnected characters, three of them Jews living in Salonika, Greece, at the onset of Germany’s invasion, and the other a Third Reich devotee carrying out Hitler’s orders on the Mediterranean island.
Nico Krispis is the title character, and it’s his journey from a beautiful boy who has never told a lie to a Nazi pawn that drives the novel. Nico and his brother, Sebastian, are just boys when the story begins, and by the end, they’re middleaged men who have lived lives defined by the choices they made during the war. Between them is their childhood friend Fannie, who both boys crushed on and who Sebastian throws off a train bound for Auschwitz at the start of the novel.
The book’s narrator presents as the definition of reliable: “I am Truth. And this is a story about a boy who tried to break me.” Truth often breaks the fourth wall and “speaks” directly to the reader, and sometimes the plot is broken up by parables, as in the one where Parable himself urges Truth to don colorful clothes instead of walking about naked and scaring the populace. That story precedes a chapter called “The Lie of Resettlement” — which explains the myth that Germans told Jews about their destination in the east where they would live and work with their families as they boarded cattle cars bound for concentration camps.
Revealing more plot
details is counterproductive for a story whose full scope, like a distant image coming into focus through a lens, sharpens with each turn of the page. As with all Albom books, the pages turn quickly. For most, this is a book that will be read in just one or two sittings. But no matter how long it takes, it will stay with you. — Rob Merrill, Associated Press
Almost 75 years after George Orwell’s “1984” was published in 1949, readers can return to Airstrip One with its Newspeak and Ministries of Truth, Peace, Love and Plenty. On second thought, maybe that ultra-totalitarian society is not a place anyone wants to revisit.
But don’t let that argument dissuade you from reading Sandra Newman’s remarkable new novel, “Julia.” Marketed as a “retelling” of “1984” (Orwell’s estate actually approved its publication), it’s not quite as bleak as its progenitor. And the omniscient third-person feminist perspective from inside the head of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia, is refreshing.
Julia is a mechanic in the Ministry of Truth’s Fiction Department. When we first meet her, she’s an ideal citizen — embracing
By Sandra Newman; Mariner Books, 400 pages, $30.
the Party line in public, but always cognizant of Big Brother watching via the ubiquitous telescreens and expressing her cynicism only in private. Oh, and she’s falling in love with a young woman named Vicky at the hostel where they both live. In fact, it’s Vicky’s fondness for Julia that sets in motion the events that spark the plot of “1984.” The love note Julia slips to Winston? Turns out Vicky actually slipped it first to Julia!
“1984” fans will enjoy experiencing the story from this point forward through Julia’s eyes, but for readers who aren’t Orwellian scholars, it’s important that “Julia” hold up on its own as well. Newman introduces the tenets of the Party and describes the surveillance society of Big Brother in great detail.
After Winston and Julia, ahem, “rat” each other out to their torturers, we’re treated to a “Part Three” that actually goes beyond the plot of “1984.” It’s the rare answer to that perennial question at the end of a good book, “and then what happened?” And for a little while, readers can hope that rebellions aren’t always doomed, and an individual might have some power over the collective.