“Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel” by Leah Garrett

Northwestern University Press. 288 Pages. $34.95.

From the moment Leah Garrett’s Young Lions announces its thesis in the subtitle, it seems indisputable that scholars should have examined this issue decades earlier: the impact of Jewish authors and their works on the American war novel. Garrett’s arguments involve innovative rereadings of several familiar texts and ample explorations of several lesser-known titles that deserve the attention she gives them. 

After an elaborate introduction, Garrett provides an overview of the Jewish soldier over time. It is not a pretty picture, with the smothering stereotypes of weakness prevailing amid outright expressions of antisemitism. Early World War II novels hint at a transition, but a handful of 1948 bestsellers were the first to truly introduce a new kind of American Jewish soldier and, as a consequence, a new kind of Jew: a hardened masculine figure equal to the demands of war, an image that anticipated Israel’s War of Independence and echoed the decades of heroic Zionist activity that preceded it.

Garrett

Focusing on the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, Garrett examines Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and Ira Wolfert’s An Act of Love. Garrett’s artful comparison-and-contrast analysis is strikingly revealing, particularly in demonstrating how the military melting pot did not erase antisemitism, though it did allow for the possibility of friendships that, within limits, “could overcome class and ethnic hatreds” within the Pacific War. . . .

To read the entire review, as it appears on the Jewish Book Council website, click here: Young Lions by Leah Garrett | Jewish Book Council

Rogue CIA agent plans nuclear vengeance on key cities

The Fourth Horseman, by David Hagberg. Forge. 368 pages. Hardcover $25.99.

Sarasota resident Hagberg’s seventy-plus novels include the popular Kirk McGarvey series, of which this is the latest. It returns to action former CIA director McGarvey in a high stakes assignment that tests all his skills, experience, and resolve. Pakistan is on the edge of chaos, and a quickly emerging leader, self-named Messiah, is on the verge of taking over – but to what end? With four stolen nuclear weapons out of Pakistani government control, it’s likely that more than Pakistan’s future is in jeopardy. 

Once McGarvey is tasked by President Charlene Miller with uncovering and stopping Messiah, he finds himself reluctantly teamed with the attractive CIA agent Pete (yes, a girl named Pete) Boylan. Her love for him is obvious and admitted, though McGarvey, still called Mr. Director by old hands, is fearful of an intimate relationship, both professionally and personally. He has already lost too many people he has cared for. McGarvey has enemies: his wife, daughter and son-in-law had been killed by a bomb exploded in a Georgetown restaurant. McGarvey’s mourning and guilt is ongoing, as is his determination to fulfill his duties – an uneasy mix.

Pete won’t stay out of the way. She’s a professional, too, and her skills are needed on this assignment.

It is McGarvey’s conviction that Messiah is none other than a trusted and experienced CIA agent named David Haaris. He has persuaded some other security higher-ups that this is at least likely, but there are others, including an assistant to the president, who are not convinced.

Hagberg

Readers, however, are allowed to get into Haaris’s head – they know more about his motives and plans then any of the characters, including McGarvey.

Haaris, a native of Pakistan who was raised in England, has learned that his cancer is terminal. He is not far away from death. A man who had lived with painful rejection as a child and as a university student, Haaris – in part through his charade as Messiah – is planning his revenge. He has a sophisticated scheme to use the remaining three of the four stolen nuclear missiles (one had been exploded, perhaps inadvertently, by Talaban forces) to bring destruction to New York, Washington DC, and London. . . .

To read the entire review, as it appears in the February 24. 2016 Fort Myers Florida Weekly and the February 25 Naples, Bonita Springs, Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte and Palm Beach Gardens/Jupiter editions, click here: Florida Weekly – Hagberg

Forgiveness: It’s something we should do for ourselves

Review by Phil Jason

Triumph of the Heart: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World, by Megan Feldman Bettencourt. Hudson Street Press. 288 pages. Hardback $25.95. Forthcoming Avery trade paperback $16.00.

So many of us are weighed down by negative emotions without truly realizing how much damage they are doing to our quality of life and to those around us. We carry the hurts of real and imagined slights. We continue to agonize over our parents’ having been distant when we needed them or having been harshly judgmental when we longed for acceptance – if not praise. We can’t get past a betrayal of confidence, a two-timing spouse, a boss or teacher who plays favorites and didn’t value our worth. 

If we are subject to physical abuse, or injured by a texting driver, or crippled on the battlefield or in competitive sports, we carry the anger until it becomes more devastating than the original incident. How can be overcome the rage and grief if a child or wife or parent gets shot to death during a robbery? Our resentment keeps eating us alive.

We simply cannot forgive.  Why should we?

Bettencourt

Ms. Bettencourt tells as why and how.

The first of many illustrative stories in this inspiring book is about Azim Khamisa, who in January of 1995 received a phone call telling him that his twenty year old son, Tariq, had been shot dead. The murderer, a fourteen year old gang member named Tony, had fired on Tariq while attempting to rob him. The healing relationship between Azim, Tony, and Tony’s grandfather, one that dramatically introduces the psychological benefits of forgiveness and the means to exercise it, sets the tone for the rest of the book. Azim founded and administers the Tarik Khamisa Foundation, a model educational institution for putting endangered youths on the right path. Azim turned his loss into something magical, and his forgiveness of Tony and friendship with Tony’s grandfather were part of the process, as was a form of meditation.

Ms. Bettencourt learned a lot by witnessing Azim in action. In fact, her own problems, she discovered, needed to be addressed through the process of forgiveness so that she could reclaim her life. . . .

To read the entire review, as it appears in the February 17, 2016 Fort Myers Florida Weekly and the February 18 Naples, Bonita Springs, and Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte editions, click here:  Florida Weekly – Bettencourt

“And So Is the Bus: Jerusalem Stories,” by Yossel Birstein

Margaret Birstein, Hana Infar, and Robert Manaster, trans.

Dryad Press. 144 pages. Trade paperback $15.95.  

Yossel Birstein

Glancing at these twenty-one vignettes by a renowned Israeli storyteller, one might be tempted to call Yossel Birstein a minimalist. However, that appellation might suggest that Birstein pared his compact prose gems down from larger constructions. More likely, he simply knew when enough was enough. How long is a bus ride? How long is the stretch between stops? How much human interaction can occur? How much be remembered and related? How much does a reader need? Birstein’s sharp, laconic focus fraught with well-chosen details, wit, brief ruminations, and lingering questions produces tiny masterpieces of cultural insight and human yearning. . . .

The full review can be found on the Jewish Book Council website: And So Is the Bus: Jerusalem Stories by Yossel Birstein

An imaginative paranormal romp with a delightful vampire twist

May Your Heart Be Light: A Christmas Faerie Tale, by Sandy Lender. ArcheBooks Publishing. 225 pages. Paperback $7.95. Kindle e-book $5.95.

Suppose a 200 year old vampire needs to raise some funds. Might he turn his Colorado mansion, his Rose Chateau, into a hotel and go into business? Caleb Odan does just that, assisted by his driver, Roger, and his bartender, Niles. They create an extended vacation package that brings a couple of dozen people to enjoy about four weeks of Christmas season leisure. Most are looking for a quiet, relaxing time – even the four young women who are graduate school classmates finishing up business degrees.

Sandy Lender

Well, they are looking for fun, too. But not the excitement that comes from a nearby jailbreak with the prisoner on the loose.

Other vacationers include a young couple with two rambunctious young boys, an elderly couple, and an odd fellow named Graham Smith.

Caleb is an awkward host, just learning the ropes about interacting with his guests. He hasn’t had much social practice in the last 100 years or so. This 200 year old vampire, who has had to live an isolated life for the last century, just can’t keep up with the changing times. Roger, who has been in his service for twenty years, is his bridge to contemporary styles, values, and both material and popular culture. Caleb is a good student, but there’s just too much ground to cover.

At once macabre and humorous, “May Your Heart Be Light” gains some of its light touch from the banter between Roger and Caleb as Roger “translates” Caleb’s new experiences. To Caleb, a handsome fellow who dresses the brooding baron part, it’s the 21^st century American humans who are the oddballs. But he needs to fit in with them as well as he can. It’s business.

There’s something extra-special about one of these young women. Jenna DeVision is gorgeous, modest, and gets lost easily in Caleb’s cavernous home. She is especially attracted to Caleb’s library, a place jammed with the lore of the non-dead and swirling with threatening spirits.

Caleb is infatuated with her, but hesitant to hurt her. He keeps his vampirish desires under wraps as much as he can, but he does use his special powers to enter Jenna’s mind and plant visions that attract and confuse her. . . .

To read the entire review, as it appears in the February 10, 2016 Fort Myers Florida Weekly and the February 11 Naples, Bonita Springs, Punta Gorda/Port Charlotte, and Palm Beach Gardens/Jupiter editions, click here:  Florida Weekly – May Your Heart Be Light

“Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books,” by Mark Glickman

Jewish Publication Society. 312 pages. Hardcover $29.95.

Though written in a more playful style than one might expect, Glickman’s study is important for locating in one place a sufficiently thorough and eminently readable treatment of its subject. Glickman begins by setting his immediate subject into a few larger ones. These include the long association of Jewish culture and civilization with the written word, which stresses the primacy of scribed and printed text in shaping Jewish life and identity. The suggestion is that no other people would be as damaged as the Jewish people through the destruction of its literature, both sacred and profane. 

Another important context developed by the author is the Nazi plundering of the larger category: all Jewish cultural production, notably including artworks. The annihilation of the Jewish people, under Hitler, required as well the disappearance or appropriation of its creative expression.

Glickman also provides a history of Jewish books and religious scrolls: their making over the centuries of changing materials and technologies, their methods of ownership and distribution, their privileged place in the transmission of peoplehood.

Mark Glickman

The heart of the book, of course, is the holocaust within The Holocaust. Rabbi Glickman traces the transition from destroying Jewish books to hoarding and hiding them. The raiding of homes, libraries, and Jewish institutions in general led to a dispersed accumulation of enormous numbers. However, even before the war was over, the effort to rescue and reclaim was underway. Jewish leaders recognized the need to rescue and rehouse the treasure of the Jewish mind, spirit and history. . . .

To read the entire review, as it appears on the Jewish Book Council website, click here: Stolen Words: The Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books by Mark Glickman

Pop culture comedy classic flays Florida’s foibles

Coconut Cowboy, by Tim Dorsey. William Morrow. 336 pages. Hardback $25.99.

This is Serge Storms Series book 19, but who’s counting? Mr. Dorsey’s long-running series gets nuttier and nuttier, but who’s complaining? The author is probably not crazy, but he is certifiable, as is his main character Serge and Serge’s sidekick Coleman. Coleman never met an intoxicant he didn’t like. Serge is a bit more discriminating – or pretends to be. You want some laughs as the expense of Florida’s dignity? This your chance.  

Where is the American Dream? That is the question that Serge, sometimes underemployed as a serial killer, has set for himself and his comrade. He hopes to find it in the past; in particular, in the idealistic and idealized 1960s. How do you get to the past? You get off the highways and get onto the back roads that take you through small town America. How do you make this trip? Just like the “Easy Rider” searchers – on motorbikes. In this case, a motorbike with a sidecar.

Mr. Dorsey pays exquisite, zany, and yet sincere homage to the American counterculture classic film, with Serge casting himself and Coleman as the film’s Captain America and Billy. What they find in the small towns they sample is corruption. And because Serge and his creator are obsessive Floridaphiles, they find a ton of that small town corruption in the novel’s major creation – Wobbly, Florida. Wobbly is at once the exemplary American small town, though not a positive example, and the quintessence of Mr. Dorsey’s rural Florida.

What’s going on? Well, the first homes in a new housing development are disappearing into sinkholes attributed to subterranean aquifer pumping gone wild. Engineering reports and insurance issues and investigations of wrongdoing reach the highest circles – which in a small town are not very high. It’s all about who pays off whom to get away with what.

Tim Dorsey

Money accumulated for that special kind of laundering that is illegal is found buried. Narcotics have brought the money into Wobbly, but how is it going to get out? And in whose pockets?

The city leaders, notably the mayor, have managed a narrow land annexation that has been put to good economic use as a speed trap. But whose economy has been enhanced? There are no reliable financial accounts or reporting procedures. There are no audits when nothing is available to audit. . . .

To read the entire review, as it appears in the February 3, 2016 Fort Myers Florida Weekly and the February 4 Naples, Bonita Springs, Punta Gorda/Port Charlottte, Palm Beach Gardens/Jupiter, and Palm Beach/West Palm Beach editions, click here: Florida Weekly – Coconut Cowboy which also includes signing events.

“The Butcher’s Trail: How the Search for Balkan War Criminals Became the World’s Most Successful Manhunt”

by Julian Borger. Other Press. 416 pages. Hardcover $23.95.

This well-researched, sobering chronicle “is a necessary and admirable achievement.”

Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia — these places are not well known to most people on the American continents. The construction from which they came, Yugoslavia, is perhaps more familiar. Such a shame that what we learn about that part of the world, the Balkans, is mostly the saga of ethnic and religious cleansing. 

The Butcher’s Trail is a demanding book because of the complexity and foreignness of its subject; it is a difficult book because of the alphabet soup of agencies that need reference and the diacritical markings that hover like shattered nibs over the names of its many, many subjects. Yet it is a necessary and admirable achievement.

The history of the ethnic cleansing that went on in crumbling Yugoslavia and its successor national entities, often below the radar of outsiders, is chronicled here in summary and by implication. That summary prefaces the much more detailed presentation of the consequent attempts to bring justice to the murderers and thus, in small measure, to the victims.

Julian Borger

Of course, one man’s war crime is another man’s act of patriotic survivorship. The justifications for ethnic cleansing are pathetic and retch-provoking. And yet, on the lips of the butchers, they sound all too rational and all too human.

Author Julian Borger touches on such matters, but his central subject in The Butcher’s Trail is the chase, or the scores of chases, to apprehend designated war criminals and bring them before a tribunal, in this case the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. The ICTY (“Y” for Yugoslavia), a United Nations body, prepared a list of 161 indictees, and various organizations from several nations (mostly) cooperated to hunt them down.

The book is loaded with horror stories; stories of procrastination and obfuscation; stories that are reminiscent of the old Keystone Cops movies; and stories of courage, determination, and ultimate success in bringing many ethnic-cleansing masterminds and functionaries to justice. Slobodan Milošević, Ratko Mladić, and Radovan Karadžić are the actors singled out by Borger from among far too many others as “the three men most responsible for unleashing carnage on the people of the former Yugoslavia.”

For these men and many others, Borger provides vivid and detailed treatments that often begin with their wartime deeds, slide back to sketch their earlier lives, then lead up to their pinnacles of infamy, and finally the consequences of their capture by NATO or others as part of the ICTY operation.

The vignettes in this book, some quite extended, are constantly interesting and brimming with tension. An example is the story of how Croatia’s desire to join the European Union depended on its compliance with the ICTY. This made the capture of its chief villain, General Ante Gotovina, imperative. And yet a Croatian official was fired for carrying out the ostensible government policy of cooperating with indictments from the Hague.

Unfortunately, such events where not unusual. . . .

To read the entire review, as it appears in the Washington Independent Review of Books, click here: The Butcher’s Trail