THE BRIDE OF ALMOND TREE
ROBERT HILLMAN
Text Publishing (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$9.99 Kindle edition, available now
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: World War II is over and Hiroshima lies in a heap of poisoned rubble when young Quaker Wesley Cunningham returns home to Almond Tree. He served as a stretcher-bearer; he’s seen his fair share of horror. Now he intends to build beautiful houses and to marry, having fallen in love with his neighbour’s daughter Beth Hardy.
Beth has other plans. An ardent socialist, she is convinced the Party and Stalin’s Soviet Union hold the answers to all the world’s evils. She doesn’t believe in marriage, and in any case her devotion is to the cause. Beth’s ideals will exact a ruinously high price. But Wes will not stop loving her. This is the story of their journey through the catastrophic mid-twentieth century—from summer in Almond Tree to Moscow’s bitter winter and back again—to find a way of being together.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Believing in A Cause has some costs. Patty and Wes Cunningham, Quaker siblings, are raised to believe their god has a purpose for them. When that purpose is made manifest, it is the organizing principle of the entirety of their lives from then on. World War II is the driver of Patty's purpose, as she serves Humanity in nursing its broken and abused; this takes her to Hiroshima and its almost unbearably damaged people, and her path in life is set for good. It leads her to the tender regard of a Japanese doctor, and Patty is sorted.
Wes, who serves in the war as a stretcher bearer, is wounded and realizes he wants one thing: to go home to Almond Tree, build a house, marry and raise kids who won't fight in wars. It isn't until this purpose in life is revealed to him that he begins to think about the party of the second part to this contract with god: mother/wife. When he sees his childhood friend Beth, everything clicks into place and he knows who he is to husband for his lifetime.
Elizabeth Hardy is a woman on fire. She ends World War II with an unquenchable Marxist faith, a belief that the Soviet Union is a Utopia, and that she must serve the Party however she can there in Australia. Wes, sweet and solid, isn't likely to assist her in any way getting the Revolution exported. His declaration of devotion is, well...not important to her. She says, "what about my sister? she'll do all that stuff for and with you!" but Wes, Quaker to his core, knows god wants him to serve Beth so he does.
Despite the devotion she does nothing to deserve and the huge amount of practical assistance she gets from Wes, Beth remains a loyal Communist to the point of being sent to prison over it. Beth's wildness is, it's clear, addictive to Wes and resonates with his own "must serve god's will" faith, so I was unsurprised by his eventual reward. Beth's passion leads her into ugly places and enables a user's streak in her. That she isn't perfect is, I admit, a relief but her imperfections are consistent throughout and clearly march along Wes's lines. After Beth becomes acquainted with the realities of Soviet Russia, she learns how far ideology can fall from reality. In the end, faithful, loyal Wes softens her landing and the life they lead can now begin.
Australia in the Cold War wasn't at terrible risk of falling into the Soviet orbit but there were many True Believers whose attempts to nudge the country there weren't successful. It's like all faiths to me, is Marxism. Unappealing, bringing out the worst in people, and making the world's most vile behavior Okay when it's for the cause. Wes and Patty's religious faith is presented as a contrast to Beth's political faith, but is equally gross. They're taught to be self-sacrificing for god's sake, not because it's the right thing to do. Wes doesn't even do the right thing! He enables an abuser and gets the back of her hand for it for far too long.
As historical fiction, I enjoyed the light shone on ordinary Australians' lives in the upheaval of WWII and its aftermath. As a novel, I wanted to shake Wes and shove him into Fanny Hardy's arms with a stern injunction to forget that crappy sister-in-law of his. And Beth needed to rot in the Soviet jail for her selfish, self-centered antics that could easily have cost her innocent family so much more.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IPHIGENIA IN AULIS, The Age of Bronze Edition
EURIPIDES; ERIC SHANOWER; EDWARD EINHORN
Image Comics
$16.99 trade paper, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: High King Agamemnon faces the most crushing dilemma of his life. Kill his beloved eldest daughter? Or forfeit victory in the Trojan War? A father’s secret plot clashes with a girl’s romantic dreams in this chilling classic play from Ancient Greece.
The most powerful dramatic script by EURIPIDES springs to life anew in a fresh adaptation by writer EDWARD EINHORN (Paradox in Oz, Fractions in Disguise, The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein) with AGE OF BRONZE art by Eisner Award-winning ERIC SHANOWER (AGE OF BRONZE, Oz Graphic Novels, Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland).
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: A graphic-novel adaptation of the basic story of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
I don't really know what else to say; if you haven't read those stories, or haven't seen the innumerable retellings in such media as exist then you've got one helluva learning curve ahead. This graphic version will, I suppose, do nicely to get you into the story. The idea that Agamemnon was required to kill his own child for a war against his sister-in-law's little bit on the side. It's a stupid reason to go to war, and the cost of it was staggering.
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