SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH BOOKS

Dan Vyleta’s The Quiet Twin offers a unique perspective on the growing menace of National Socialism in Vienna, in 1939. Using an ordinary apartment building and the events which affect the seemingly ordinary characters who inhabit it as a microcosm for the terrifying realities which are about to come, Vyleta creates an almost unparalleled atmosphere of fear and dread. An absorbing literary novel, which never loses its way as it progresses, it is ultimately a horror novel which out-horrors almost all others, not because of the awful events which unfold, but because the unfolding action feels so casual and so domestic in the context of the residents’ lives. And that is the whole point. Throughout the action, each character decides in a moment of crisis, that “just this once” s/he will ignore the promises made to others and the values which have always been paramount in civilized society in favor of what works best for himself/herself at that moment. The result is a societal compromise of epic proportions, one which allows the Nazi menace to take hold. The word “Holocaust” never appears, though the psychological horror, political horror, sociological horror, and moral horror come to life in new ways as the action in this apartment house unfolds.

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In this readable, exciting, and historically enlightening novel with two separate plots, Audrey Schulman accomplishes an incredible task. She makes the individual plots totally compelling and uniquely character-driven as they shift back and forth in alternating chapters, always leaving the reader panting for more and anxious to keep reading toward a conclusion. What is most seductive about the novel is that the plots take place in two different time periods and settings—one, in the area of what is now Kenya in 1899, and the other, in Virunga National Park, on the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, in 2000. In the first plot a man from Bangor, Maine, responsible for building a railroad from Mombasa to Kisumu, through Amboseli, must deal with two large and bloodthirsty lions, reportedly over nine feet in length, as they lie waiting to pick off railroad workers; in the second, a young scientist with Asperger’s Syndrome is charged with finding a vine that is consumed by mountain gorillas and which dramatically reduces the incidence of both stroke and heart disease in their species. If Max, the researcher is able to obtain samples of the vine, a pharmaceutical company will, among other benefits, provide armed security to ensure the survival of the gorilla population in Virunga National Park, ad infinitum. Somehow Schulman manages to connect these two disparate plots in the conclusion, leaving the reader wholly satisfied on all levels.

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Newly appointed Aboriginal Community Police Officer Emily Tempest has returned to her roots in Bluebush – in the Northern Territories of Australia – after more than ten years spent traveling the world. The daughter of Motor Jack, a white geologist/gold prospector and an aborigine mother, she grew up in her mother’s culture until she was a teenager and has always felt more comfortable there, despite the educational programs and travels which later took her all over the world. Having returned to live with “her” people when she is in her twenties, she continues to resent the intrusions of the “civilized” white world and the damage it has caused to the natural world venerated by the aborigines. Filled with atmosphere, local color, and nonstop action, the novel opens with a gruesome attack at Green Swamp Well, in which a drunk, elderly prospector is found with his hammer embedded in his throat. Another prospector, also drunk, found asleep near the body, is arrested. Hyland does not sugar-coat any aspect of life in the outback. His characters are coarse, and the action and language are sometimes even coarser. Shootings, explosions, rock falls, attempted murders, a brutal rape, and chase scenes take place even as the author is raising questions about conservation, environmental threats, and the serious problems facing indigenous communities.

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William Kennedy’s latest novel in the Albany Cycle, his eighth, continues the story of several repeating families from Albany, New York, during the heyday of its infamous, politically corrupt “machine.” Focusing on Daniel Quinn, a newspaper reporter who is the grandson of the Daniel Quinn (who reported on the Civil War in Quinn’s Book), this novel begins in August, 1936, when Daniel is a child, watching as his father brings a piano (origins unknown) into the Mayor’s house. Cody Mason, a pianist specializing in Harlem “stride,” is about to put on a private show with the young Bing Crosby. Only six pages (and twenty-one years) later, Quinn, an experienced reporter, is in Havana in March, 1957, hanging out at the El Floridita bar and hoping that Ernest Hemingway, will show up. He also hopes to interview Fidel Castro. These two opening scenes, the arrival of Hemingway and his boorish attack on a tourist, and Quinn’s trip to Oriente province, establish the narrative tone and atmosphere for this novel which focuses on two revolutions, the Castro-led revolution in Cuba and the slightly later revolution in the US in the 1960s regarding civil rights. Humor and irony add considerable charm to the novel, and for many readers will more than outweigh the sometimes wooden characters and wandering narrative.

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“Every grown-up German is a warrior at heart. In his childhood he plays soldiers, in his old age he relives his battles. They have developed the theory of war [to a fine art], like a game of chess…War is also a dance. The war dance had begun, they say. A minuet. Accompanied by a twenty-five-shot [...]

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