Books: The Bridge of Sighs (2003) and The Confession (2004), by Olen Steinhauer
There must be a word that means “to read an author’s blog before reading any of that author’s books.” Maybe the Germans have one. If they came up with weltanschauung ...
I can’t remember how I discovered Contemporary Nomad, a group blog written by a quartet of authors featuring smart posts on life and culture and a name I always sing to the tune of Re-Flex’s immortal “The Politics of Dancing.” (In my head, everything is set to music.) Once it became one of my regular stops, I decided I might as well check out the contributors’ books.
Olen Steinhauer is the site’s unofficial ringmaster and an American living in Europe. His crime novels chronicle life in a fictional unnamed nation behind the Iron Curtain.
In Sighs, set in 1948, a young homicide inspector is assigned a politically sensitive case that no one expects or wants him to solve. The novel, touching on wartime atrocities committed by both the Nazis and the Russians and including a jaunt to Berlin during the height of the Airlift, deftly introduces the country and the core group of characters that appear in subsequent books.
I liked it enough to move right on to the follow-up, and what a huge step forward it is. The Confession unfolds in 1956. The Hungarian revolution is in the air. A murder investigation involving state-supported artists triggers a personal and political awakening in a detective/frustrated writer. More than a smartly plotted mystery, The Confession lays bare the social and psychological survival methods that develop in totalitarian states.
Still to come are 36 Yalta Boulevard, Liberation Movements (recently nominated for the Best Novel Edgar) and the final book in the series. Not to mention the latest icy thriller from Steinhauer’s fellow Nomad Kevin Wignall. Then, only two more Nomads to go. Whew.
Miscellaneous: Links
I was lax in not doing an Academy Awards recap this year. (I’ll say only this: with big wins for The Departed and The Lives of Others, it was a grand year for the thriller.) Jay A. Fernandez of the Los Angeles Times looks back at the ceremony from the screenwriters’ perspective.
Also from the L.A. Times: director David Fincher and novelist James Ellroy, a man who knows something about obsession, talk Zodiac.
First It Was the Thin Mints Melee . . .
2 hours ago
3 comments:
Glad the books worked for you, Vince. I think we both agree that Bridge is a slight book, particularly compared to what followed. If I could, I'd actually cut Bridge from my ouvre, but it turned out to be the one that put me on the map and got lots of award nominations...and is in fact still some people's favorite! It's weird.
We also agree about the Oscars...Lives of Others was wonderful (though I found the end a little wandering), and The Departed was...well, it was Scorsese, wasn't it?
Bridge is far from slight, Olen. I prefer to think of it as intimately scaled. As for cutting it from your oeuvre, nonsense! I've often heard that an author's first book remains a favorite with his readers, so I'm not surprised to hear it's true in your case. I wondered what you thought of The Lives of Others, as it touches on many of the issues you deal with in your books. The ending is a bit extended, but does it pack a wallop ...
Okay, maybe I'm overstating the point, but I really can't bear to read more than a couple pages of Bridge...
As for Lives of Others, despite my concerns about the ending, the rest of the film was an immaculate presentation of living under "the eye is always on you" totalitarianism. I thought its examination of how that world alters everyone was really insightful and honestly done.
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