ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607300113
SECTION: BOOKS PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
`The Statement' based on real war crimes in France
artwork |Reviewed by BOB ALOTTA|
THE STATEMENT. By Brian Moore. Dutton. $22.95.
For once, a publisher's puff is right. According to the publicity release, "you will read 'The Statement' in one riveting sitting." They were right, so right.
Though labeled a work of fiction, "The Statement" is based on real life. As told by Brian Moore, the story is about Pierre Brossard, a 70-year-old who has spent most of his life in hiding. Condemned to death in absentia 50 years earlier for his war crimes, Brossard has been constantly on the move, staying for brief periods of time in monasteries and safe houses all over the south of France.
Aided by members of the Roman Catholic clergy and ultra-conservative laymen, Brossard is able to live a tenuous existence - until times change. Government officials of a new breed are determined to right the wrongs of the Vichy government and break a half-century of silence. Though previously pardoned by the president of France, Brossard is once again a target. His friends in the church, police and government see him now as a dangerous liability; with calm preparation, they proceed to eliminate him as a threat to their current positions.
The title refers to the piece of paper the assassin is to pin to Brossard's dead body: "This man is Pierre Brossard, former Chief of the Second Section of the Marseilles region of the Milice, condemned to death in absentia by French courts, in 1944 and again in 1946, and further charged with a crime against humanity in the murder of fourteen Jews at Dombey, Alpes-Maritimes, June 15, 1944. After 44 years of delays, legal prevarications, and the complicity of the Catholic Church in hiding Brossard from justice, the dead are now avenged. This case is closed."
The book is drawn from the case of Paul Touvier, who - according to the author - was "chief of the second section of the Lyon Region Milice, a paramilitary group organized by Vichy and run on Nazi lines. Touvier was twice sentenced to death in absentia by post-war French courts, yet was never tracked down even when, through the influence of the Catholic Church - and possibly even governmental influence - he was incredibly pardoned by President Pompidou in the seventies."
In addition to Touvier, three well-placed officials were also charged with crimes against humanity. They did not hide. Rather, with the use of excellent lawyers, their cases were delayed year after year until one died of natural causes and another, on the eve of his trial, was murdered by a "madman." The third man, Maurice Papon, is now in his 80s and living in high style in Paris.
Touvier was captured, by the way, tried and convicted. He was the first and only Frenchman to be sentenced for a crime against humanity. The author believes that France wants to forget the shame and complicity of Frenchmen - and Frenchwomen - during the war. "It was only in 1995," he writes, "that the French government at the highest level would acknowledge and apologize for this shameful episode in their history." "The Statement" is breathtaking, even more so when one realizes that many of the events it portrays did, in fact, happen.
Bob Alotta is an author-historian who lives in Harrisonburg.
Photographs chronicle history of the Olympics |Reviewed by BOB ALOTTA|
OLYMPIC DREAMS: 100 Years of Excellence. By Douglas Collins. Introduction by James A. Michener. Universe Publishing. $25.
"Olympic Dreams," a collection of photographs chronicling the first century of the Olympic Games, puts the Olympics in proper perspective.
The book is published as an "Official publication of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC)" by Universe Publications and, according to the publisher's press release, the Eastman Kodak Co. The release touts Kodak as "the oldest sponsor of the modern Olympiad" and indicates the firm "has a unique interest in this publication since they have provided press film processing at all the Games since 1968." Sadly, the book becomes yet another corporate back-pat at the expense of the athletes.
When the torch was conveyed from Philadelphia's Independence Hall to Atlanta, one could not mistake the fact that the torch run was sponsored by Coca-Cola. Few people recall that the first torch to be run into a stadium was done at the behest of Adolf Hitler with the 1936 Berlin games. The first modern games were held in Athens 100 years ago and were opened by a group of toga-clad women carrying an urn from the Temple of Jupiter to the Temple of Hera. In today's politically correct world, it seems, that type of ceremony would be unacceptable. And one cannot open an advertising coupon supplement to a Sunday newspaper without disgorging countless promotional tie-ins to the games. If this review seems to be a little hard on the Olympics, it is so intended.
This reviewer cannot forget that the multitalented American Indian Jim Thorpe was denied his medals during his lifetime because he picked up some spare change in semipro sports. Though the medals were returned to his family following his death - and after a great deal of petitioning - Thorpe was never properly honored. Then we look at the "Dream Team" at the 1992 Barcelona games, the American basketball entry that included Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and other stellar professional athletes. In this one person's mind, the USOC lost all credibility.
The book has beautiful photographs, but what could one expect from Eastman Kodak? By the way, Michener's introduction is all of two pages. How, in that space, could a writer with such a propensity for long books capsulize what the title calls "100 Years of Excellence''?
Bob Alotta is an author-historian who lives in Harrisonburg.
Grisham takes tobacco industry to court
Grisham takes on tobacco industry
with art |Reviewed by MIKE MAYO|
THE RUNAWAY JURY. By John Grisham. Doubleday. $26.95.
John Grisham's newest best seller is something of a departure. It still has a legal setting - a tobacco liability trial - and the familiar supporting cast of conniving lawyers. But Grisham has streamlined his plot, eliminating labored descriptions of locales and settings that have slowed some of his earlier works, to concentrate on story. His prose has become much more assured and sharply honed.
He has also managed a very tricky bit of technical legerdemain by keeping his protagonists' motives and expectations a mystery to the reader for almost all of the novel's 401 pages. Who are juror Nicholas Easter and his accomplice, Marlee? Why is she feeding information to tobacco lawyer Rankin Fitch, who's trying to buy a favorable verdict for his clients? Jury tampering isn't the least of Fitch's sins; it's merely the most conventional.
That's where the novel is at its best. Fitch is a fine villain who'll do anything to get the verdict he wants. His underhanded tactics provide a welcome balance to the didactic and often dry trial testimony.
Grisham posits a lawsuit where a large tobacco company is defending its product against a smoker's widow. The question is cast as a matter of pure black and white, with all of the wrong on one side. As a character puts it, "These tobacco people are bright, intelligent, educated, ruthless and they'll look you right in the face and tell you with all sincerity that cigarettes are not addictive. And they know it's a lie.''
Yes, the conflicts are hugely oversimplified, but that's what popular fiction does, and in the legal arena, Grisham does it about as imaginatively and shrewdly as anyone.
Mike Mayo also reviews films
and video for this newspaper.
Grisham|
Two halves don't make a whole
orToo much is not enough
Two halves not a whole
with art |Reviewed by NEIL HARVEY|
BLACK LIGHT. By Stephen Hunter. Doubleday. $23.95.
Because it features characters from his previous thrillers, Stephen Hunter's "Black Light" is a sequel of sorts to "Point of Impact" and "Dirty White Boys," but it contains enough material to extend to a half-dozen narratives.
In 1996, Bob Lee Swagger and Russ Pewtie team up to uncover the secrets behind the 1995 slaying of Swagger's father. What they find involves an inept presidential candidate, a crooked general, a cool, gruff monster, the ever-malicious Pye clan, and an elderly prosecutor coping with his lapsing faculties as well as a rape/homicide, Southern race relations, a murder trial, an execution, a brutal grocery store robbery, World War II and Vietnam events, musings on the corruptive nature of progress, many shootouts and, of course, Hunter's encyclopedic knowledge of weaponry and his descriptive power regarding the many ways firearms can affect solid objects.
In other words, there's a lot happening in "Black Light." In fact, so much is going on that eventually the story's focus suffers as the periodic gunbattles undermine the novel's serious aspects and the extensive descriptions, digressions and details slow down the action.
"Black Light" is "Go Down, Moses" by way of "Shotgun News," two separate books, a Southern Gothic and a gun opera, both deftly written, populated with vivid characters and extremely engrossing. Unfortunately, the two halves don't sit together very well: one simmers, the other explodes.
Neil Harvey is a Blacksburg
writer.
BOOKMARKS
A cross-stitch sampler.|
artwork-make it as large as possible |Reviewed by MARY SUTTON SKUTT|
ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY ARTISTS & ARTISANS. By Barbara Crawford and Royster Lyle Jr. University of Virginia Press. $49.50.
Did you know that Herman Melville compared his white whale, Moby Dick, to our own Natural Bridge? "Rockbridge Artists & Artisans" authors Crawford and Lyle found that in 1851 Melville wrote, "for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge."
For anyone whose ancestors lived in Rockbridge County, for anyone interested in the arts and crafts of 1700-1900, or for true Virginia history fans, this book is a must. It was 10 years in the making, and the wait was worth every day.
Describing the works of more than 300 people, the book includes chapters on artists, furniture makers, textile artists, gunsmiths, clock makers, ironworkers and potters in Rockbridge County. The authors also supply plenty of history and genealogy data.
The chapters are followed by 44 pages of personal profiles including birth and death dates and sometimes marriage dates. The specific type of craft, the business or production location, and the years of operation are given for all listed artists - from George Adams, cabinetmaker; b. 1825 Rockbridge County to William Zollman, gunsmith; c. 1785-1834. Many of the same names are seen today on rural mailboxes and in the phone book.
Local folk, descendants of the artists and artisans, contributed to the book by allowing photographs of their antiques or family treasures. "They often led us through attics and basements," acknowledge the authors. Credits are generously given to the residents who helped accumulate the records and do the research, the photography, the typing and the editing.
This is not light reading; the book is heavy! And large (9-by-12 inches) with glossy thick paper and 254 pages. It is full of notes, references, facts and historical anecdotes. The pictures are wonderful, a few in color but mostly black and white. This only looks like a coffee-table book. It is really history at its best.
Mary Sutton Skutt lives in Lexington.
Emergency room doctor stars in thriller |Reviewed by A. SIDNEY BARRITT III|
CRITICAL JUDGMENT. By Michael Palmer. Bantam. $22.95.
Start with a young woman doctor, an emergency room specialist. Bring her to a remote California mountain town where her fiance works for a multinational company, ostensibly developing government contracts related to battery technology. But, wait! People are getting sick for no apparent reason. The fiance begins to act strangely. The company, despite its protestations, must be up to no good! The plucky young M.D. resolves it all.
Is the situation plausible? Maybe. Does the dialogue crackle with excitement and suspense? No. Does the climax make sense? It does, if you enjoy "deus ex machina" endings. Despite these flaws, the story does move right along if the reader is willing to suspend disbelief for a while. "Critical Judgment" isn't heavy stuff, but it is better than average summertime beach reading.
A. Sidney Barritt III is a Roanoke physician.
LENGTH: Long : 237 linesby CNB