It might be a cliche to say that Hilary Mantel brings historical figures back to life, but I can't put it otherwise. This is an astonishing book that takes the reader into the lives of leaders in the French Revolution. Even as we know how their stories will end - they will lead the revolution and then be killed by it - Mantel manages to maintain suspense. I found myself thinking about this book long after I finished it - I began to see parallels everywhere for the ideas, arguments, and events that surrounded Demoulins and Danton.
Hilary Mantel's work can be challenging to read, especially if you're not very knowledgeable about the historical events she covers. I didn't know much about the French Revolution before reading this book, but the book was so immersive and fascinating that I found myself reading and listening to other things on the topic so I knew enough to follow the plot. It was engrossing and rewarding, even as it was time consuming.
This novel follows the lives of three major figures in the French Revolution - Robespierre, Danton and Desmoulins - from their childhoods in Northern France through to the last terrifying moments of their execution. The book juxataposes private occasions with public events.
In my academic work, I've read a lot about modern Ireland, especially its treatment of young women who were sent to state institutions like the Magdalene Laundries. Clair Wills incredible book is the best thing I've ever read on the subject, and manages to make sense of a nearly impossible question: how did ordinary people in Ireland cope with - and participate in - these cruel institutions that effectively incarcerated young women and their babies? Wills answers this question through a historian's research tools and a memoirist's reflections on her own life and family. I read it twice, nearly back to back, so moved was I by the complexity and tragedy of the story.
Blending memoir with social history, Clair Wills movingly explores the holes in the fabric of modern Ireland, and in her own family story.
“Clair Wills shines a brilliant, unsparing light into the dark recesses of her family’s history―and the history of Ireland. Missing Persons is a stunningly eloquent exploration of how truth-telling, secret-keeping, and outright lies are part of all family stories―indeed, the stories that unite all communities―and how truths, secrets, and lies can both protect and destroy us.” ―Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle and Hang the Moon
When Clair Wills was in her twenties, she discovered she…
This book deserves all the acclaim it has attracted in the last year: it's a fascinating, moving, immersive read. The plot is propulsive but it can be enjoyed on many levels. I'm very interested in the German Democratic Republic and found the historical/ political background of the novel beautifully rendered. But it is not a novel about politics, as Erpenbeck has said in interviews. Even as world historical events are unfolding around them, or even as they navigate the restrictions of a dictatorial surveillance state from which there can be no escape, the characters in this book are absorbed by their doomed romance.
Jenny Erpenbeck (the author of Go, Went, Gone and Visitation) is an epic storyteller and arguably the most powerful voice in contemporary German literature. Erpenbeck's new novel Kairos-an unforgettably compelling masterpiece-tells the story of the romance begun in East Berlin at the end of the 1980s when nineteen-year-old Katharina meets by chance a married writer in his fifties named Hans. Their passionate yet difficult long-running affair takes place against the background of the declining GDR, through the upheavals wrought by its dissolution in 1989 and then what comes after. In her unmistakable style and with enormous sweep, Erpenbeck describes the…
Abortion pills have made safe medication abortion possible for millions of people around the world, even in the most restrictive circumstances. In my book, I illustrate the profound, transformative promise of these pills—which are safe, effective, and responsible for a sharp decline in maternal mortality. Abortion Pills Go Global demonstrates that the widespread practice of self-managed medication abortion makes it more difficult for countries to enforce oppressive abortion laws and less willing to do so. It follows these pills as they are manufactured and then transported by feminist activists from India to Ireland, Northern Ireland, Poland, and the United States. Ultimately, the growing availability of abortion pills in places with restrictive laws means more people have access to self-managed healthcare.
