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Laddar... A Stone for Breadav Miriam Herin
Ingen/inga Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken.  SteveLindahl | Apr 30, 2016 |  inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
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"In 1963, North Carolina poet Henry Beam publishes a collection of poems, claiming they had been saved from a Nazi death camp. The accusations of plagiarism that follow cost Henry his university teaching position and force him into decades of silence. Thirty-four years after their publication, he breaks that silence by telling grad student Rachel Singer about his year in Paris: how he nai?vely became entangled with fiery right-wing politician Renard Marcotte, his love affair with the shop girl Euge?nie, and his unnerving encounter with the enigmatic Rene?, the man who supposedly gave Henry the disputed poems. As Rachel wonders how much is true, Henry's story forces her to examine her own life and the secret she has never acknowledged"--Page 4 of cover. Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
Pågående diskussionerIngen/ingaPopulära omslag 
 Google Books — Laddar...GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyBetygMedelbetyg: (5)
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1
A Stone for Bread by Miriam Herin has three main settings: rural North Carolina during the present time, France during the post World War II era, and Mauthausen, a Nazi labor camp located in Austria during the war.
The book starts with the story of a tragic accident in 1917 when a young French boy does something that leads to the death of his brother. Following that opening, the novel jumps to present day North Carolina when Rachel Singer, a young assistant at a PBS station, is approached by Scott Trevelian, a producer at the same station. Scott asks her for help on a documentary he's planning about Henry Beam, a poet and former member faculty at Duke University. Henry had been involved in a publishing scandal years earlier.
When I think of a writing scandal, I think of stealing someone else's words. This was the opposite of plagiarism. Henry had been accused of publishing his own work, but claiming the poems had been written by a camp survivor, for dramatic effect and for the money that comes with the drama.
Scott doesn't get much from Henry for his documentary, but the poet takes a shine to Rachel. The rest of the novel is Henry's story alongside the stories of two other men, the boy at the novel's start when he is a grown man and a charismatic French politician. The majority of the book is about these three, interwoven lives.
Herin's writing is beautiful. Her word choice is perfect and she handles a complex plot in a way that consistently draws the reader in, revealing the important elements slowly and carefully.
One side note that some readers might find interesting. At one point in A Stone for Bread two of the characters talk about their favorite classic books. These are The Great Gatsby and To the Lighthouse. I have read the former, but never read any Virginia Woolf. So I've started her novel. I believe this is the first time I've taken a book recommendation from a character in another novel. Maybe that shows how much I liked this book.
Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions (