A Man Lies Dreaming' by Lavie Tidhar‏

**Comes out March, 2016.

A Jewish writer of pulp fiction is detained in a concentration camp during World War II. He has lost his family and is digging graves for the growing number of dead bodies in the camp. He has nothing left. But as a writer, perhaps out of habit or perhaps to keep himself sane, he still has stories buzzing around in his head. And the story he's writing, a private eye mystery set in London, is the crux of Tidhar's novel. I cannot reveal who he casts as his (hero/anti-hero?) private investigator, without spoiling the story, except to say that it's amazing the author went down this road. It's even more amazing that the plot works, despite the twisted politics of the time, the intense racism, the threat of world war. 

In a concentration camp, you're barely there and you may not live to see the next day. But in this narrator's case the imagination burns deep, too deep to extinguish. 'A Man Lies Dreaming' is some powerful fiction, though many of the characters were real. If you're like me, you'll be consulting Wikipedia to see who they really were, to try to wrap your head around this incredible, unforgettable tale.  

Pete's new review is here!!

A Man Lies Dreaming' by Lavie Tidhar‏

**Comes out March, 2016.

A Jewish writer of pulp fiction is detained in a concentration camp during World War II. He has lost his family and is digging graves for the growing number of dead bodies in the camp. He has nothing left. But as a writer, perhaps out of habit or perhaps to keep himself sane, he still has stories buzzing around in his head. And the story he's writing, a private eye mystery set in London, is the crux of Tidhar's novel. I cannot reveal who he casts as his (hero/anti-hero?) private investigator, without spoiling the story, except to say that it's amazing the author went down this road. It's even more amazing that the plot works, despite the twisted politics of the time, the intense racism, the threat of world war. 

In a concentration camp, you're barely there and you may not live to see the next day. But in this narrator's case the imagination burns deep, too deep to extinguish. 'A Man Lies Dreaming' is some powerful fiction, though many of the characters were real. If you're like me, you'll be consulting Wikipedia to see who they really were, to try to wrap your head around this incredible, unforgettable tale.  

Hey, Old Sport, Pete has a new book review

A review of West of Sunset, a novel by Stewart O’Nan

There are no second acts in American lives wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. Perhaps not, though he nearly did have his own second act were it not for failing health.

Stewart O’Nan’s latest novel, West of Sunset, tells the story of Fitzgerald’s final few years as a Hollywood screenwriter. But this is not the high flying Fitzgerald of the Gatsby days, or the years after spent chasing Zelda around Paris. In this chapter of his life we find Fitzgerald nearly broke, Zelda confined to a sanitarium, and daughter Scottie off at boarding school. Though only in his early 40’s, this Fitzgerald has had too many late nights, too many cigarettes, and his efforts to quit drinking mostly end in failure. Through connections, however, he is given a chance to go to Hollywood and write for the movies.

As a contract screenwriter, Fitzgerald finds himself much lower on the totem pole than he is used to. The actors, directors, and especially the producers run the town. You can be hired one day, fired the next, or be easily replaced by someone’s relative or friend. Still, he begins carving out some kind of life for himself, even finding a steady girlfriend in gossip columnist Sheilah Graham (who has quite a story of her own). But with Zelda’s deteriorating mental health and his own drinking problem, it’s a life of ‘boats against the current ‘ as he wrote so well in The Great Gatsby.

As I was reading this interesting novel, I thought of the character Hubbell Gardner from the movie The Way We Were. Hubbell writes a story about a bright young man similar to himself. “In a way he was like the country he lived in; everything came too easily to him.” Fitzgerald may have felt like that after success at such a young age, and it’s fascinating to read about him reflecting back to those days while looking forward to a very uncertain future. Are there no second acts in American lives? If not, he sure came close.

Pete gives Killer Angels rave reviews

Killer Angels is Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the three day battle of Gettysburg (July 1 - 3, 1863) during the Civil War. The story is told from the point of view of a variety of combatants including Robert E. Lee, Joshua Chamberlain, James Longstreet, John Buford, and George Pickett, who led the famous, ill-fated charge of the Union line during the battle’s culmination. 

If you have any interest in the Civil War or American history in general, I would strongly recommend this book. It’s easily one of the best novels about warfare that I’ve ever read. You really get the feeling of being there, on both sides, and what it may have been like as an officer, bestowed with great power but also burdened with brutal decisions that could mean life or death. Or just to be a regular soldier, marching across open fields against volleys of gunfire, ducking under a rain of cannonballs, stepping on or over fallen men and dead horses.

War is hell they say, and it certainly seemed as much for the majority of soldiers at Gettysburg. But as far as the book goes, the prose sure is beautiful. It’s an interesting contrast: Here we have a beautiful telling of a horrible war. There were at least 50,000 casualties if you total up both sides after three days of fighting. And then the guns fell silent. July 4^th was the very next day.