- Mass Market Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: Avon; Reprint edition (Aug 24 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061097934
- ISBN-13: 978-0061097935
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 1.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #513,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Veteran bestselling author Leon Uris (Exodus, Trinity) stays true to form with A God in Ruins, delivering yet another vast and vigorous novel about politics and history, right and wrong, love and loss. This time his country of choice is the United States, on the eve of the 2008 presidential election.
The incumbent, Thornton Tomtree, is running against the Catholic governor of Colorado, Quinn Patrick O'Connell. Thornton, who grew up playing in his daddy's Providence junkyard, made billions on a computer invention before becoming president. Brainy, calculating, and stiff, he lacks both charm and scruples--qualities that the honest and open Quinn, an ex-Marine, has in spades. Though set in 2008, A God in Ruins has its roots firmly in the past. In order to flesh out his characters, Uris casts his net all the way back to World War II, highlighting some of the more dramatic moments in Thornton and Quinn's lives as they move inexorably from youth towards a run for the White House. In the process, Uris takes up some of the attention-grabbing political issues in America from the second half of the 20th century: gun control, terrorist attacks, and Clinton's sex scandals.
Uris can always be counted on to inject the political with the personal, and Quinn is the perfect vehicle for this when his presidential bid is threatened at the eleventh hour by potentially damning information about his past. A lively supporting cast of characters--from Quinn's delicious wife Rita to Thornton's conflicted right-hand man Darnell--adds spark to this emotional story. At one point, when the campaign has reached a fever pitch, Thornton says about Quinn, "Our jingle-jangle rope-a-dope cowboy is going to be a handful." So is Uris's engaging book, which positively spills over with simple heroism and hot-button political issues. --Katherine Anderson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Veteran writer Uris (Exodus; Redemption) begins his 12th novel with a compelling premise: Quinn O'Connell is certain to become America's second Roman Catholic president, except that he discovers, a week before the 2008 election, that he was actually born Jewish. Adopted 60 years ago by a Catholic couple, and newly informed by his long-lost Jewish half-brother of his heritage, O'Connell now asks a difficult question: Is America ready to elect a Jewish president? This initial introduction of the issue of anti-Semitism seems promising. Uris obviously is aiming to put the religion of a world leader in perspective: what does it matter if he's at heart a good and honest man? But then he virtually ignores the theme for the next 300 pages. Even when the national reaction to O'Connell's identity results in epidemic violence against Jewish people across the country, an event compared to Kristallnacht, the national issue that gets the most play in O'Connell's presidential race is gun control. His opponent in the election is Republican incumbent Thornton Tomtree, whose administration is struggling to repair his reputation in the wake of violent national tragedies like the Four Corners Massacre, in which 400 Eagle Scouts and their troop leaders are killed in a catastrophic explosion set off by a drugged-out militia group. O'Connell goes up against the gun lobby and calls for repeal of the Second Amendment as part of his presidential campaign. This issue dominates the bulk of the novel, making the opening and closing sections feel like a cut-and-paste job on a totally different story. Years are dismissed in sentences and events are outlined instead of described. Gun lobbies, neo-Nazi militias and tensions between black and Jewish communities eventually get worked into the plot, as does O'Connell's family history, but Uris's apocalyptic tale is too stylistically scattered to generate much suspense. In fact, readers may think they are reading a miniseries teleplay that hasn't been fully fleshed out. Author tour; 15-city TV satellite tour. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
A Catholic orphan of sixty years is not apt to forget the day he first learned that he was born Jewish. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
A Catholic orphan of sixty years is not apt to forget the day he first learned that he was born Jewish. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Transparently liberal,
By RTBWriter (Cincinnati, OH) - See all my reviews
This review is from: God In Ruins A (Mass Market Paperback)
Unlike a reader from Potomac, Maryland I was not fortunate enought to have read a review of A God In Ruins before picking up a books-on-tape copy. If I had not already invested three hours of listening to get to the crux of the story, I would have trashed it. Leon beats the idea of repealing the 2nd amendment to death, going so far as to coining a pro-gun organization known as Amerigun. In his book, a so-called conservative, Republican organization smuggles thousands of machine pistols into the US , but are stopped by the heroics of an orphan Russian who switched from Republican to Democrat to become the Governor of Colorado and who is raised Catholic only to discover he is really Jewish on the eve of being elected President, this setting off riots of skinheads, the KKK, and black muslims. (I know, don't ask)As if this was biased enough, the Russian Catholic Jewish Presidential candidate laments how Bill and Hillary Clinton had had their careers destroyed by the unfair sniping of the GOP and the media. Poor Bill was faced with describing oral sex with an intern as a non-issue before the nation. Give me a break. On second thought, 2 stars may have been too high a rating. Leon has gone on to his reward and I can't confront him in this world and won't waste my time in the next. I can, however, warn you away from this book unless Bill and Hillary are heros of yours.
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Terrible Boo-Boo.,
By LostBoy76 (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: God In Ruins A (Mass Market Paperback)
"A God in Ruins" is a stunningly bad novel, and a complete waste of time in all respects. This novel also demonstrates that an author's once-immense talent can leave him in the cold. I am being brutal to Mr. Uris because he is one of my favourite authors of all time, and it is horrible to see the man who wrote brilliant, haunting novels like "Exodus", "Mila 18", and "Trinity" produce such a lifeless piece of trash. The writing is poor and amateurish, the characters are uninteresting, and the pro-liberal, anti-conservative tone almost made the book feel like propaganda. You should feel ashamed of yourself, Mr. Uris!! You have done your fans (myself being one) and your reputation a great disservice by writing this novel.
1.0 out of 5 stars
An Author in Ruins is more like it.,
By Bill Amoureux (Nowhere near Hollywood) - See all my reviews
This review is from: God In Ruins A (Mass Market Paperback)
After reading Leon Uris since I was in High School more than 25 years ago, I was so grossly disappointed by this book that I had to rethink my feelings of all of the Uris books of my past. I actually wonder if he really wrote this book or if some liberal pupil of his from Columbia conned him into letting him use his name for this worthless, poorly edited, cartoonishly poor work of strawman arguments. The "author" (yeah, right) is obvious in his desire to grind his politically liberal axe in the face of the average western American male. Mixed metaphor? Of course.Every character becomes a sterotypical caricature. The liberal politics are obvious. The editing is amateurish. And the story isn't even very interesting. Pretend Mr. Uris stopped writing after Redemption. Pretend he died with thoughts of the Irish free of politcal and religious turmoil and his notoriety will be saved.
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