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BERLIN SOLSTICE This novel follows the interwoven lives of a number of Germans as they struggle through the ethical minefield created by Adolf Hitler's rise to power: the enigmatic Count Wolfgang von Friedrich; the glamorous cabaret singer, Carmel Kohl; Klaus Schmidt, an embittered soldier's son who climbs from poverty into the top echelons of the Gestapo; the jovial, Jew-hating capitalist, Axel Berg; the peasant, Ilse Schultz, driven by simple-minded patriotism to murder her retarded son. Among these fictional characters walk the real architects of the Nazi nightmare - Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Josef Goebbels and the Fuhrer himself, glimpsed with mistress Eva Braun in his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden. PRAISE FOR BERLIN SOLSTICE "This compelling and courageous novel has moved me not only to tears but almost beyond words. A frightening and convincing reconstruction of past terrors, it is also a passionate plea and warning for the future everywhere. 'When do you become what you don't resist?' This moral dilemma will always be with us... I rarely use the word 'brilliant,' but I use it now, with respect, about this novel." - Margaret Laurence "I'd give my right arm and left tit to have written Berlin Solstice. The best as well as the most ambitious of her novels, Sylvia Fraser has written a political Grimm's tale so contemporary and compelling it puts her alongside the best of today's fictionists .... Her canvas is large as the map of Europe itself. Removing wolfish incisors and forked tail, she has succeeded in making the madmen, perverts and murderers of the Third Reich credible .... Even the dullest and the most self-complacent Philistine will find it impossible not to be moved ... superbly crafted novel as difficult to overpraise as to stop reading." - Irving Layton "A chilling portrait of how some turn into brutes and others into angels." - The Financial Post "Fraser is more than an historical novelist; she is an epic singer for our time." Gazette |
"The best Canadian novel of the year!" - Calgary Herald "Her best, her most forceful and absorbing novel since Pandora. " - Whig-Standard "An unforgettable picture of that turbulent period ... A guaranteed page-turning, hard-to-put-down story." Toronto Star "A tour de force by Fraser. It's both good fiction and good history." - Vancouver Province "Sylvia Fraser's greatest novel ... a triumph of moral intelligence and innate talent." - Hamilton Spectator "A novel of operatic scope." - Maclean's "A bravura performance." - Ottawa Citizen "Powerfully written, believably acted out and intelligently plotted ... There is a palpable feeling of being there with the characters as they struggle with events of history." - Winnipeg Free Press |
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