We care
about these men and women. They are
flawed but likeable characters when they are youngsters in their 20’s. We love the remaining men when they are old
and callous; still flawed, but humbled by their experiences.
There was a
rich field of as yet untapped plot-line themes that make up this book:
African-American jazz musicians and other sorts of entertainers traveling in
Nazi Germany; the anomaly of racial purity as a political doctrine that can
dominate a nation; the whole dangerous mystique of moving around in Nazi-held
territory [She steals the departing Paris train scene from “Casablanca” where
Rick and Ilsa don’t meet up as planned, {but why not – it was a great scene} ].
An unusual
twist, for us Americans, was that, through Edugyan’s research, we learn that
African-Americans were respected and welcomed into the dinner tables of
Deutschland. However, through
parental-indiscretion, Hiero, is an African-German and considered a racial
outcast. That’s just the tip of the
iceberg of what rich, fascinating information this book contains
The author
examines the mischling situation from all angles, not just African mixtures,
but Jewish as well. She seemingly writes
herself into the book as Delilah, the only real female character: mysterious
and all-knowing, she dominates the action until the book shifts completely to
the present.
This book
appears to be the complete opposite treatment of the effects of racially-mixed
blood lines as last year’s “Cane River”, which was such an intellectual
treatise on the subject. However, they
both stimulated deep thoughts about this subject area
