Gone to Soldiers

I won't go as far as the LA Times, which declared Marge Piercy's Gone to Soldiers "the most thorough and most captivating, most engrossing novel ever written about World War II," but certainly this epic novel is heroic in scope and well worth the time it takes to read the 750+ pages.

Piercy has created an entire cast of characters - ten separate narrators - and has given each of them a unique voice, compelling story, and impressive cast of supporting characters, in additional to intricately and believably linking together many of their stories, often in ways such that the characters themselves may not even realize they are linked to one another. In other words, like life.

Most, but not all, of the narrators are Jewish, some living comfortably in the U.S. while struggling to come to terms with what is happening to their relatives in Europe, others struggling daily under the heal of the Gestapo, watching in horror as friends, neighbors, family disappear, wondering when they themselves will be rounded up and departed.

From the jungle-covered islands of the Pacific, to the horrors of Auschwitz, to the factories filled with women churning out planes and tanks, and the halls of bureaucracy and secrecy in London and DC, Piercy explores the war from all angles. The final product is a carefully-crafted, thought-provoking work, admirable for what the author has done, as well as what she has written.

Five stars.