From Publishers Weekly
Keneally, who won England's Booker Prize for Schindler's List, here offers an intricately constructed, labyrinthine tale that unfolds on three levels. A traditional third-person narration chronicles events taking place in Penrith, Australia, in the early 1980s. Terry Delaney, a professional rugby player who takes a part-time job as a security guard, meets Rudi Kabbel, an emigre who runs his own security business. Their lives intersect in various ways, especially after the married Terry becomes involved with Rudi's daughter. Rudi is an eccentric, deeply scarred personality as a result of his tragic past in war-torn Europe, which is recounted in trenchant chapters entitled "Radislaw Kabbel's History of the Kabbeleski Family." A more informed and shocking perspective on the horrors of the war is found in excerpts from Rudi's father Stansislaw's journal. Along with Rudi's history, they set the stage for the present-day demonstration of what is indeed a family madnessa madness that Terry must contend with in the novel's stunning conclusion. Keneally brilliantly combines three diverse narrative techniques, and while the book is not light or easy reading, it is enormously rewarding.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Terry Delaney, a rugby player in Pernith, Australia, takes a job with a security firm run by Belorussian emigre Rudi Kabbel, a man "marred by history." When Delaney falls in love with Rudi's daughter, he is drawn into the family's madness as they prepare to survive an apocalyptic annihilation and establish "a true Belorussia of the spirit." In his "History of the Kabbelski Family," Rudi recounts his harrowing experiences as a child in World War II when the Nazis occupied his homeland; and the journal of Rudi's father, Stanislaw Kabbelski, reveals the evil done in the name of patriotism by the Belorussians fighting for their independence. These three separate narratives are skillfully combined in a complex and powerful novel by one of Australia's leading writers. Kenealy's last book was the critically acclaimed Schindler's List ( LJ 10/82). Janet Wiehe, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton County
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
