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Summary: Espionage, love, the sea -- themes for both men and women
Review: In his latest novel, Watkins takes his characteristic hero, he who defines himself by action, into the previously uncharted landscape of sexual love. In this territory new to Watkins, he writes about the connection between man and woman with the same lyricism that has been applauded in his earlier fiction. While he has not deserted his familiar themes of the brutality of war and the isolation of all human beings, one senses a reprieve from loneliness in the story of The Story of My Disappearance, and that reprieve comes in the form of a challenging but profound connection with a woman as tough as the traditional Watkins hero. Tough but underneath as tender as her male counterpart and the relationship dished up in passages of lyrical prose that make the reader love them both. Watkins has been compared to Hemingway perhaps too many times. His existential themes continue in the Hemingway lineage, it is true, but his prose waxes romantic in the line of Fitzgerald, and the resulting blend is a fortuitous amalgam in American fiction.
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Summary: East German Agent Stranded in US when Wall Comes Down
Review: This is a believable and compelling story about the violent and dangerous life of East German agents, recruited under pressure; threatened and beaten to carry out their assignments. The assignment of this guy is to spy on a friend, and later to be a courier in disguise in Newport, R.I. (smuggling things to and from a Russian submarine). This is where he is when the Wall comes down and has to decide what the heck to do when stranded in a free country with a fake ID. Everything about this caught me by surprise.
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Summary: Another Good read from Paul Watkins
Review: This is the second of his books that I have read and it's quite a departure from the last book which is set in post-WW1 Morocco and Paris..but a great read -- a real page-turner and will now go bakc to his earlier books -- and the device of using himself(?) or is he using his own life experiences is quite a mystery to me at this moment
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Summary: A fine and intricately told story.
Review: This was my first Paul Watkins book, but I will now look for and read others. I rated this book and 8, but it is an honest 8. Grapes of Wrath gets a 10. I was hooked by Mr. Watkins' book and enjoyed it very much. It is serious and interesting and thoughtful. Not a page turner in the conventional sense, but if that is what you want, I'm sure Danielle Steele will be coming out with two more books this month. The characters in "The Story of My Disappearance" are unusual and interesting, though the lone female could have been developed more fully. As a writer, what I liked in this story was the plotting and the attempts at weaving past and present, which was done skillfully though not perfectly. Who can do that perfectly? I don't know. But it must be done in a novel like this, which portrays how our past is never really left behind. Even if we force it down inside us, it may still erupt from the outside, as people and incidents from our past come back to haunt us. Read this book. I think you'll like it.
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Summary: A novel of 1 man's journey from his past to his future.
Review: Through recalling terrifying and traumatic events of his past, including his reluctant experience in the military with his best friend Ingo Budde, Paul Wedekind confronts his old life as an East German working for the secret police in order to build a new life as Paul Watkins, married to Suleika, a fellow "ex-agent". Finely drawn characters. A moving novel of one man's emotional journey from his past to his future. The author creates a picture so vivid and realistic that the reader can actually FEEL what's happening to Paul. A very exciting read. Well worth your time.
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Summary: Watkins always pleases
Review: What happens to spies whose country seizes to exist? This happened to those Stasi spies who were abandoned in America and elsewhere at the end of the Cold War. Paul Wederkin is just such as spy. The story tells how he came to be there, through his Afghani war experience, his friendship and the death of his friend. However, the real surprise is in the beginning when his dead fried walks into a Rhode Island bar and murders someone in front of him. This story packs just a little too much action into too small a space for me. Its pace is a bit frenetic. However, the depth of character and prose lyricism remains strong as in all Watkins' books. To give you an idea, before the story even opens, our hero, the East German Paul Wedekind has been a promising engineering student who has been recruited (coerced) by the secret police to spy on his friend, has served in Afghanistan, has been taken prisoner by the Afghans and has at last come to America as a spy for the Russians. Whew! And before dinner, too!. But that's only the intro: the real story is about his work in America. The Cold War is over and he hopes he has been forgotten but that's overly optimistic. The adventure is grand and utterly amazing, but that's okay, because you love the story anyway. His crisp and disciplined prose continues to delight me and I predict the day will come when folks quit comparing him to Hemingway and begin compariing Hemingway to him.
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Summary: The Cold War hots up
Review: You know how sometimes it takes several pages before you really get into a book? Well, this book only needed one sentence to get me nibbling at the bait, and two more paragraphs to have me completely hooked. In the Newport, Rhode Island bar where Suleika and Paul were going through the death throes of their relationship, a sudden, brutal murder brought back into Paul's life a man who he had betrayed and long thought dead. The central character is quickly revealed as an East German operative named Paul Wederkind, planted into the RI fishing community, shortly before the Berlin Wall came down. The old tub of a fishing boat he operates with Suleika, the widow of the man he secretly entered the USA to assist, also serves to covertly transport "cargo" to and from Russian submarines. As the story unfolds, we learn about the machinations of the East German secret police, the war in Afghanistan, the Cold War - all things that normally would not interest me, but the writing is so compelling, I found myself just absorbing the story. I've long been a fan of speculative fiction exploring alternate history, but in this book, the author seems to create an alternate biography. Partway through the book, Paul Wederkind changes his name to a more Americanised form, Watkins - is this really an autobiography? Well, the book jacket tells us Paul Watkins (the author) was born of Welsh parents and educated at Eton and Yale, so I guess not. Maybe this is his more exciting alternate life - I can associate with that. But he obviously has a Suleika in his own life - the author photo on the jacket is attributed to someone of that name. This is the first of Paul Watkins' books I've read, and I'm grateful he seems to have been reasonably prolific, so I can enjoy more of this wonderful writing.
Rating:
Summary: The Cold War hots up
Review: You know how sometimes it takes several pages before you really get into a book? Well, this book only needed one sentence to get me nibbling at the bait, and two more paragraphs to have me completely hooked. In the Newport, Rhode Island bar where Suleika and Paul were going through the death throes of their relationship, a sudden, brutal murder brought back into Paul's life a man who he had betrayed and long thought dead. The central character is quickly revealed as an East German operative named Paul Wederkind, planted into the RI fishing community, shortly before the Berlin Wall came down. The old tub of a fishing boat he operates with Suleika, the widow of the man he secretly entered the USA to assist, also serves to covertly transport "cargo" to and from Russian submarines. As the story unfolds, we learn about the machinations of the East German secret police, the war in Afghanistan, the Cold War - all things that normally would not interest me, but the writing is so compelling, I found myself just absorbing the story. I've long been a fan of speculative fiction exploring alternate history, but in this book, the author seems to create an alternate biography. Partway through the book, Paul Wederkind changes his name to a more Americanised form, Watkins - is this really an autobiography? Well, the book jacket tells us Paul Watkins (the author) was born of Welsh parents and educated at Eton and Yale, so I guess not. Maybe this is his more exciting alternate life - I can associate with that. But he obviously has a Suleika in his own life - the author photo on the jacket is attributed to someone of that name. This is the first of Paul Watkins' books I've read, and I'm grateful he seems to have been reasonably prolific, so I can enjoy more of this wonderful writing.
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