The Madonna on the Moon

August 12, 2013
German photographer and journalist Rolf Bauerdick makes his fiction debut with an ambitious and fun first novel. Opening in the 1950s, but spanning over decades with the history of the small village of Baia Luna, located in the fictional Eastern European nation of Transmontania, the book chronicles life before, during, and after a country's absorption into the socialist bloc, through the hindsight of protagonist Pavel Botev, a teenaged student at the novel's start. The village of Baia Luna is uniquely populated by a cast of bizarre and enjoyable characters and is among the few places to resist the spread of socialism. Bauserdick's plot centers primarily around two mysteries: an unsolved murder in 1957 with consequences that resonate for years to come, and a conspiracy linking the launch of Sputnik to location of the Virgin Mary's body. The first two-thirds of the book sparkle with fun and wit. The end is less promising: in that the clever twists and turns at the start are built up and then suddenly resolved in hurried expositional conversations at the end. Nevertheless, this engaging first effort should appeal to fans of Robertson Davies's sagas and the cosmic irreverence of Tom Robbins.

July 1, 2013
A busy, lightly absurdist coming-of-age tale driven by the confusions of communism, religion and the space race. Bauerdick doesn't say in which country his debut novel is set, but the small town tucked near a Carpathian mountainside is plainly Romanian. The story opens in 1957, as young narrator Pavel observes his family and neighbors dispute the meaning of the second Sputnik launch. Communism thus far has been a distant drumbeat in the town of Baia Luna, but its threats soon draw closer: The local priest is found murdered, and Pavel's teacher is discovered hanged. What ensues is largely a detective story, led by Pavel, involving the sexual peccadillos of Communist Party functionaries, complete with sordid photos and anguished diary entries. He won't grasp the full extent of the drama till communism's fall three decades later, but the story is leavened by a subplot involving Pavel's grandfather's determination to understand the fate of the Virgin Mary. In numerous set pieces, he argues with a local Gypsy about whether the holy mother ascended to the moon and whether the U.S. and Soviet space missions are really just efforts to prove (or disprove) her existence. As the men hunker down over Bibles and telescopes, Bauerdick reveals the bubble of ignorance that surrounded those living under communism, and he explores the push and pull between faith and growing totalitarianism. Bauerdick, via Dollenmayer's translation, is a plainspoken writer, not given to metaphorical language or lyrical turns of phrase, and some plot turns feel baggy and overwritten. However, the novel captures the way communism slowly ground down its subjects, yet it doesn't feel like a falsely inflated epic, and the comic passages involving Pavel's grandfather give the story a likable, quirky tone. Though the prose doesn't set off sparks, Baeurdick finds an off-kilter way to explore a dour period in history.

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August 1, 2013

Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn, 14, expects to join her mother on a voyage to San Francisco, but the treachery of a supposed friend separates them, and the boat leaves without her, stranding her as an orphan in China. Much-acclaimed author Tan (The Joy Luck Club) is publishing her first novel in eight years, an epic, as the publisher calls it, that could be termed "a courtesan's handbook." It is also the wrenching, intertwined stories of three women--mother Lucia/Lulu, daughter Violet, and granddaughter Flora--who all three suffer abandonment and loss, then are forced to forge new identities for themselves. The tales (better, travails) of mother and daughter unfold mainly in Shanghai at the turn of the last century, where circumstances force each to become a courtesan to earn her livelihood. Tan introduces us to an extensive cast of well-drawn, authentic-seeming characters who either shape or try to undo the lives of these indomitable women. It should be noted that if the sex in this tale is not graphic, it is certainly frank--and abundant, though well done. VERDICT This utterly engrossing novel is highly recommended to all readers who appreciate an author's ability to transport them to a new world they will not forget. As a plus, this reviewer sensed the harbinger of a sequel by the last page.--Edward Cone, New York

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2013
Bauerdick takes us to Baia Luna, an isolated mountain village in a loosely fictionalized Romania, where 15-year-old Pavel Botev is trying to solve a mystery. Why would Angela Barbulescu, Pavel's worldly but troubled schoolteacher, hang herself when the Soviets came to claim Baia Luna? What did she mean when, after putting up a photographic portrait of Stefan Stephanescu, the new party secretary of Kronauburg, in her classroom, Barbu whispered instructions to Pavel to kill him and send him straight to hell ? And why would someone steal the statue of the Virgin Mary from the church? The answers to some of these questions would seem to be found in the teacher's sad and cryptic diary entries or perhaps in the photographic darkroom, but they may also lie deeper in Romanian history. Part coming-of-age story, part historical commentary, and part tragic thriller, this novel recently won the European Book Prize for best novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)