Across Great Divides by Monique Roy

Publication Date: June 19, 2013

Formats: Ebook, Paperback

223 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

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Across Great Divides is a timeless story of the upheavals of war, the power of family, and the resiliency of human spirit. When Hitler came to power in 1933, one Jewish family refused to be destroyed and defied the Nazis only to come up against another struggle—confronting apartheid in South Africa.

Sixteen-year-old Eva and her twin sister, Inge, witness their lives in Berlin change before their eyes. Their best friend, Trudy, betrays them when she becomes a member of the Hitler Youth. A valuable family heirloom, a beautiful emerald and diamond pendant necklace, is confiscated by the Nazis as they continue to harass Jewish families and businesses.

Their younger brother, Max, a member of the underground resistance, sees even greater danger ahead. Their father, Oskar, a diamond merchant with a thriving business, refuses to leave his beloved Germany and believes Hitler will eventually fail. Their mother, Helene, the elegant matriarch of the family, holds her family together.

The family is conflicted whether they should leave home. But after the devastation of Kristallnacht in 1938, they finally flee Germany with the help of the underground resistance after hiding many diamonds. They seek refuge in Antwerp, but war follows them as Belgium is occupied by the Germans.

A young German man, a nun, a countess conspiring against the Nazis, and a winegrower secretly hiding Jewish children, help them to escape Europe. They hike over the Pyrenees Mountains while eluding German patrols and Spanish informers. Then, they spend agonizing days on a ship bound for Rio de Janeiro that is targeted by a German U-boat. As Rio’s diamond business is corrupt, they decide to go to South Africa, another diamond market.

In Cape Town, Eva encounters an impoverished colored woman, Zoe, who is in need of work. The family hires Zoe as their maid and shields her and her daughter, Zola, from the dangers they face in the slums of District Six and from the horrors of apartheid, which are all too reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

But, when Max gets into trouble with the South African police over his participation in an anti-apartheid march, will he be subject to imprisonment?

In a thrilling conclusion, the family comes to terms with the evils of society, both in their memories and current situation in South Africa.

Review

Discovering that this novel is based on the true experiences of the author's grandparents  enhanced my appreciation of the characters.  Such an inspiring story of survival needs to be preserved.  I received a free copy of this book via the blog tour in return for this honest review.

An incident involving the Belgian Resistance that occurred in Across Great Divides led me to discover a highly unusual event in the history of the Holocaust.   Thanks to an action of the Belgian Resistance, there was a mass escape of Jews from a train headed to Auschwitz.  Find out more at Attack on the Twentieth Convoy on Wikipedia.

A spotlight on a non-Jewish German character allowed us to see a glimpse of life in a Zulu village.  I had read a bit about Zulu culture in Mala Nunn's Emmanuel Cooper mystery series which takes place in 1950's South Africa, but I still know little about the traditional Zulu shamanic practitioners.  The information included in this book about their ceremonies was tantalizing.  Some further information can be found in the Wikipedia article Traditional Healers of South Africa .

I liked seeing Max's anti-apartheid activism, but I was far more impressed with Eva's kindness toward her African servant which was actually very courageous.  I was reminded of  the subversion against apartheid by the Indian South African characters in The World Unseen by Shamim Sarif which I reviewed on Book Babe here.  Powerless minorities in South Africa such as the Jews and Indians had less reason to maintain apartheid than the dominant Afrikaners.  For Jews who had fled Nazi Germany like the protagonists of Across Great Divides, the link between apartheid and Nazi ideology was painfully obvious.

Occasionally, I did notice that some crucial background was missing.  For example, one character seemed to have had unlikely success in South Africa considering what was mentioned about his background.  Then I realized how it could have happened.  This character probably had suffered discrimination in Germany and couldn't pursue his original career.  Reconstructing this missing struggle in my mind made so much more sense of the character and his choices.

I was also somewhat disappointed with the portion of this novel that took place in Brazil. Although my interest in Jews in South Africa was one of my motivations for choosing to review this book, I  also have a fascination with Brazilian history and culture. So I wished that there had been more detail about the family's temporary stay in Brazil.

Across Great Divides was a quick read, but it was full of impact.  It's very possible that any additional details would have attenuated the novel's thematic focus to some extent. Readers may be satisfied with what Monique Roy has given us.   It does make a strong statement against prejudice.

                                               

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Across Great Divides Available At

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About the Author

Monique loves writing that twitches her smiling muscles or transports her to another time or place. Her passion for writing began as a young girl while penning stories in a journal. Now she looks forward to deepening her passion by creating many unique stories that do nothing less than intrigue her readers.

Monique was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and her grandparents were European Jews who fled their home as Hitler rose to power. It's their story that inspired her to write Across Great Divides, her debut, historical fiction novel.

Monique holds a degree in journalism from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and is also the author of a children's book Once Upon a Time in Venice. In her free time, she loves to travel, play tennis, pursue her passion for writing, and read historical fiction. In 2008, she was chosen by the American Jewish Committee's ACCESS program to travel to Berlin, Germany, on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, to explore German and Israeli relations along with 20 other Jewish professionals from across the U.S.

Discover more at Monique Roy's website. You can also connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Across Great Divides Blog Tour Schedule

Tuesday, June 16
Review at 100 Pages a Day

Wednesday, June 17
Spotlight at Passages to the Past

Thursday, June 18
Guest Post & Giveaway at Let Them Read Books

Friday, June 19
Spotlight at The Never-Ending Book

Monday, June 22
Review at Room With Books

Tuesday, June 23
Review at Book Babe

Wednesday, June 24
Review at Book Nerd

Thursday, June 25
Spotlight at CelticLady's Reviews

Friday, June 26
Spotlight at A Literary Vacation
Excerpt & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More

Amazon Burning: Dramatic Red Alert With Compelling Characters

It’s been some time since a book has taken me to Brazil.  Those who used to read my previous blog, The Unmasked Persona's Reviews , would know that I reviewed several books by the widely revered classic Brazilian author Jorge Amado, that I’m interested in Brazilian history and in Afro-Brazilian religion.  Amazon Burning by Victoria Griffith also isn’t the first book I’ve read dealing with the need to preserve the fragile ecology of the Amazon Basin.  Its fragility isn’t addressed in this novel, but I thought I’d mention it before beginning my discussion of Griffith’s work.

Here’s the background on this issue. Many people aren’t aware that when all the trees are logged out of the Amazon jungle, there will be no topsoil left.  The entire area will become a vast desert.  Stripped of the jungle’s resources, the Brazilian economy will collapse.  Even worse, global warming will become irreversible.  See this Climate Warning From 2006. Preserving the jungle’s biological diversity is certainly important, but what is really crucial is preserving Brazil’s future and the future of humanity.  These are the reasons why the struggle of the heroic central characters of Griffith’s book is so urgent. 

I consider Amazon Burning a very timely red alert.  I received a free copy from the publisher in return for an honest review.

                                                           

                                           

I must apologize for starting this review with a lecture.  Amazon Burning is not some ponderous academic study.  It’s actually a suspenseful romantic eco-thriller that begins with the murder of activist Milton Silva.  The point of view character is Emma Cohen, an idealistic journalism student at New York University who has left behind a major legal predicament that gradually unfolds over the course of the novel.  Like her crusading journalist father, Emma believes that her vocation is to right all wrongs through investigation and publication of every instance of inequality and injustice.  Until she came to Brazil, she hadn’t quite grasped how dangerous her career can be.  Griffith deals with Emma’s maturation along with the critical problems that she faces in the Amazon.  In many cases, this process of growing up entails a surrender to cynicism, but Emma’s commitment to her principles survives all her hardships. I found this really wonderful to behold.  By the end of the novel, Emma has become more resilient and a credit to her profession.

Another significant element in this book is the people that Griffith calls the Yanomami.  Elsewhere I have seen them named the Yanomamo.  The Yanomami/Yanomamo are only one of many indigenous groups that reside in the Amazon jungle.  Anthropologist Napoleon A. Chagnon romanticized them, but Griffith portrays the degradation of their environment and the decline of their health.  If you would like to learn more about them, I would recommend Spirit of the Rainforest which is written from their perspective.  Griffith shows that they aren’t passive victims.  When they become aware of their options, they are quick to take advantage of them.  I really liked seeing a bit of Brazilian indigenous culture in this book.  Griffith provides us a genuine sense of place.  I definitely felt transported to Brazil.

The romance took time to develop due to plausible barriers that resulted from the characters' circumstances.  Some readers might consider these barriers contrived, and might have preferred the course of true love to have been smoother.  Yet that would have interfered with the tension necessary in a thriller plot.  So I think that Griffith's decisions about the romance relationship were good ones.

Even though Amazon Burning has a number of strengths, I had doubts about a couple of details.  Emma is depicted as being able to see what is happening outside a plane while traveling in a cargo compartment.  I’ve been advised by co-blogger Tara, who knows a great deal about airplanes, that it’s highly unlikely that there would be windows in a cargo compartment.  More importantly, I wondered which judge would have allowed Emma, a defendant faced with a serious charge, to travel as far as Brazil while awaiting trial.  I kept on wanting her legal situation to be fully clarified. I didn’t feel that I ever understood how or why she had no restrictions on traveling in her position.   It could be that one or the other of her parents had officially posted bond and told the judge that they would make certain that she appeared in court, but I would have been happier if readers were told that up front. 

Finally, I had a disagreement with a statement that was made by one of the characters about capoeira.  He said that it was more like dance than a martial art and that it was “pretend fighting”.  That may be an accurate representation of that character’s practice of capoeira, but capoeira isn’t uniformly non-violent.  Capoeira can be beautiful in an exhibition, but so is a solo karate kata sequence.  That too may appear to be like a dance, but no one would argue that karate isn’t a genuine martial art.  Capoeira can actually be quite deadly despite appearances.  Please read Is Capoeira An Effective Martial Art?  I found it to be very informative article about the history and practice of capoeira.

Despite these relatively minor missteps, I really did enjoy Amazon Burning.  There were some clever red herrings provided for readers to chew on during the course of the murder investigation.  I never guessed who murdered Milton Silva until the truth was finally revealed close to the end of the novel.   

So Victoria Griffith has given us a successful mystery dealing dramatically with important themes, containing sympathetic characters who develop over the course of the narrative, and a credible representation of Brazil.