PEOPLE - I am going to have my own bookshelf
Share in my ineffable glee
Me:
Anyway, on to A Coup' of Sorts by Howard Rosenzweig.
Summary:
A Coup' of Sorts is a fast paced political thriller with elements of both the supernatural and of horror. It takes place in January 1979 in South America, with flashbacks to the Vietnam War, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and to the Auschwitz death camp in 1944. Les Cohen, a former American assassin during the Vietnam War, now a mercenary, has been enlisted by a Catholic priest to overturn the South American dictatorship he had helped to install. With the help of his wife, he must find the compassion he has so long suppressed, in order to follow through and not betray the priest, who himself has sought supernatural help from a rabbi friend in case the American fails him.
Can I please say that I think this book would be better as a film than as a novella?
Reasons:
- It's written in a very straightforward style and rarely describes things in very close detail.
- It feels like a screenplay, just the way that the actions and dialogue are written.
- There is way too much content for such a short book. So much content, so many flashbacks to so many different times. It's hard to keep track of when the scenes are so short.
This last point also is a reason why I think that for this story, novella isn't the best format. As a novella, there is minimal room for expansion of such an intricate plot.
My absolute favorite part was that Howard Rosenzweig inserted two songs into the book, that I think he wrote himself. They are excellently written lyrics!
So:
A Coup' of Sorts is a complexly plotted story with the main flaw that it was told in the wrong format. I could see it being so much better as a film, or even a longer novel. But mostly a film.
And I'm off! To clean out my new space. :-)
~Sophia
