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blood with more than 100
other prisoners of war.
Judge's target is Erich
Seyss, a former track star
(hence the title) and a
master of language and
disguise who spent much
of the war doing dirty
work behind enemy lines.
Escaping from a POW
camp in the first pages of
the story, Seyss is pressed
into service to carry out the Churchill and Truman
assassinations by Old Blood and Guts himself.
However, the real hero of this novel is the
Organization of Strategic Services, the precursor of
the CIA, and one of its operatives in particular
who saves Judge (and the free world) when it
counts. Truth be told, he is a more interesting
character than Judge.
The absence of Jewish characters or even much
mention of Jews in the story is jarring. Unless, that
is, you take it as a metaphor representing the status
Jews had not only in Europe but in the eyes of many
Americans of the time: a symbol of how close
Europe really came to becoming Judenrein.
— Reviewed by Ellen Jaffe-Gill
Like Normal People by Karen E. Bender; Houghton
Mifflin; 269 pp.; $23)
This hauntingly beautiful debut novel explores
the tensions between love and loss, acceptance and
hope, in a family dominated by one member's
challenges. From the moment Ella Rose discovers
her young daughter, Lena, is developmentally dis-
abled, her life's focus profoundly shifts.
Controlled by the need to protect Lena from a
world she would never master, Ella devotes herself to
caring for her daughter and, when Lena marries, her
similarly challenged husband, Bob.
The novel is set on the day Lena has set fire to
her room in her assisted-living residence. It would
have been Lena and Bob's wedding anniversary, but,
instead, it is six months following Bob's accidental
death during an outing with Lena and her adoles-
cent niece, Ella's granddaughter Shelley.
As Ella surveys the damage, Lena and Shelley
embark on a journey that takes them to the beach,
and then even further to a new mutual understand-
ing and respect.
Bender skillfully weaves the trajectory of the three
lives through flashbacks, revealing Shelley's obsessive
behaviors and overwhelming fears, Ella's slipping
memory and eroding competence and Lena's lifelong
struggle for love and independence.
Shifting between the voices of Shelley and Ella,
the novel is rich with evocative descriptions, authen-
tic dialogue and exquisite detail. The characters' vis-
ceral reactions to emotional moments ring true. By
the day's end, the family has begun to transform.
Having long accepted Lena's limitations, her niece
and mother appreciate her normal emotions — sim-
ilar to their own — in her inability to comprehend
and accept Bob's death.
Shelley's parental role during their adventure her-
alds a tentative confrontation with her anxiety and a
nascent foray into the adult world. Ella realizes the
constraints of her age, finally accepting the dimin-
ished role she will play in her daughter's life.
Although the ending is deeply satisfying, the
novel's strength is in the journey as it portrays both
a lifetime and a single day of unexpected beauty and
triumph, marked by offerings of love that are gen-
uine, unconditional and, ultimately, universal.
•
—
Reviewed by Rebecca E. Kotkin
The Barbarians Are Coming by David Wong Louie;
Putnam; 384 .pp.; $23.95)
American Jews and Chinese-Americans often
express the cautious mutual admiration of minorities
who have traveled parallel paths in American cul-
ture. Yet it is only very recently that these two
6/23
2000
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