Review and Giveaway
Guernica by Dave Boling
Fiction, hardcover, 367 pgs.
Bloomsbury USA
Guernica is a wonderful story, beautifully written. The history alone is fascinating, and told from the perspective of a tough but loving and loyal Basque family in the Spain of the 1930s, it becomes entirely alive to us. Justo Ansotegui and his two brothers grow up without the benefit of parents. One brother becomes a priest, Justo's daughter Miren marries Miguel Navarro, a woodworker. They are a strong family who together experience the squeeze of food shortages, arrests and disappearances of dissenters, threats of war. They stick together through it all. Then tragedy strikes.
Considerable research has gone into the telling of this story. Many of the figures of the time are real: General Franco, President Aguirre, Wolfram von Richtofen, brother of the famous Red Baron. The latter is the one who organized the bombing of the Basque village, which had no military targets. It was a Nazi experiment that remains a shocking example of innocent civilians attacked for the sake of testing strategy. The world was horrified. The author deliberately "tried not to tax the reader with elaborations on the complex and volatile politics at the time-especially the strange and sometimes shifting alliances, parties, and labels-but rather to establish a general context of the poverty, oppression, instability, and disenfranchisement that common citizens would have felt."
It is the personal story that interests us. How the Basque culture and language were outlawed in Spain. How they fiercely and loyally resisted attacks from all factions, smuggling those trying to escape from the Nazi's across the mountains out of France, or helping downed Allied pilots escape and get home again.The shipping of the Basque children to England is true and tenderly told. There is heartbreak in this story but there is so much love, and hope too, even after the worst kinds of suffering.Guernica is a story that needs to be told. Five stars, highly recommended. You owe it to yourself to read it.
I have arranged through Bookmooch to acquire TWO copies of Guernica to give away to my readers. They are in very good condition, gently read. This is a giveaway I am proud to have.
For an entry:
1) Consider subscribing or following my blog, or putting a link to Fresh Ink Books on your blog roll. OR just leave a relevant comment on one of my previous book reviews. * If you already subscribe or follow me and would like to win Guernica, just remind me in your comment and you're entered!
2) Blog about this giveaway and put a link back to it and I'll give you a SECOND entry. If you don't have a blog, email 4 friends telling them about this giveaway copying me at sfuhringer(at) sympatico(dot) ca.
CLARIFICATION: You must qualify for the FIRST entry before you can earn a SECOND. Blogging about it or linking to this giveaway alone will not get you an entry. Sorry, but I'm interested in readers and commenters, not traffic.
Please leave a contact address if you're entering the giveaway and don't have a blog where I can contact you.
Winner will be announced on Sunday, November 9, 2008.
It's Giveaway Day again at Fresh Ink Books and hardcover copies of Guernica by Dave Boling are going to...
