What a wonderful book. A quiet, understated, perfectly paced story of a bereft family hoping against hope that the younger son, Sam, MIA in Vietnam, will yet return home. Set in a small town in Pennsylvania in 1972, the complex family dynamics form the heart of the book. There is so much pain and heartbreak here, grief and loss, and yet there’s also love and forgiveness and the gentle tone relieves the bleakness. I don’t want to say anything about what happens as this is a novel to savour and let the events unfold in their own time. Dramatic events do indeed happen, but Krivak is never melodramatic in his portrayal of them, deep feelings are ever-present, but again Krivak never descends into sentimentality. Beautifully written, this is a book that will long stay with me.

Books regarding military and war are usually not my go to read. However, I saw this pop up on my feed a few times and thought why not check this one out. I am so glad I did. This book took my breath away by how utterly beautiful and atmospheric the writing was. This is a slow burner of a book, but will definitely stay with you long after you are done reading it.
A story of war, grief, and hope all intertwined throughout. This may sound like just another historical fiction regarding WWII, but this prose is poetic and you will be right there with the characters. Bo, oh my goodness this character, is the epitome of strength and accomplished not what he may have wanted to do-he did it for his family.


I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest opinion. My thanks to Andrew Krivak and Scribner for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Review up on Goodreads: Books regarding military and war are usually not my go to read. However, I saw this pop up on my feed a few times and thought why not check this one out. I am so glad I did. This book took my breath away by how utterly beautiful and atmospheric the writing was. This is a slow burner of a book, but will definitely stay with you long after you are done reading it.
A story of war, grief, and hope all intertwined throughout. This may sound like just another historical fiction regarding WWII, but this prose is poetic and you will be right there with the characters. Bo, oh my goodness this character, is the epitome of strength and accomplished not what he may have wanted to do-he did it for his family.


I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest opinion. My thanks to Andrew Krivak and Scribner for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Review up on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29430743-the-signal-flame?from_search=true

**First off, thank you very much to Scribner and Netgalley for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really beautiful, understated story. There are heartbreaking threads throughout the plot of suffering and loss that sort of hang over the novel like a thick fog. But despite the morose themes, I found myself really enjoying the story. I also had no idea that this was a part of a series (?).

The story itself is rooted in a small town and centered on the Konar family. Hannah's father Jozef has just passed away, and he has deep ties to the surrounding area, specifically with another local family as well as Hannah's deceased husband, Becks. Hannah is left with her son Bo, who has spent a lifetime working at the family mill while his younger brother, Sam, has been declared MIA in Vietnam. The both of them endure the wait for news regarding his status while mourning the sudden passing of Jozef (and touching on past grief). Ruth, the daughter of the family with which Jozef was involved (via the purchasing of land) is a young woman who, by birth, shares more of a history with the Konar family than is really fair, is carrying Sam's child and also shares in the waiting.

It's so hard to review the story without leaving everything a mystery because it certainly doesn't pull any punches, but trust me when I say that this is a masterfully written novel, despite its simplicity and overwhelming sadness. It's one of those that will stay with me for a long time.

4.5/5

I had such high hopes for this book but it wasn’t for me. I did not finish it as I really could not get emotionally attached to any of the characters as they held no interest to me. It was difficult for me to follow the dialogue and narration as well which led to my not finishing this book.

A beautiful elegiac tone imbues this mournful tale of life on the land in a small mountain town in Pennsylvania. Centered around the last 2 surviving members of the Konar family - matriarch Hannah and her grown son, Bo, this is a tale of relentless heartbreak and loss. Mourning the recent passing of her husband, and waiting for news of her son, Sam, who is MIA in Vietnam, Hannah is understandably a bit prickly and on edge, initially turning her ire on Sam's pregnant fiancee, until fate deals another unspeakably cruel blow on the family and they are drawn together in their united grief.
Krivak's usage of language is stunning, evoking the harsh world of the mountains where nature rules the roost. My only criticism is it did feel like too much tragedy was placed at the door of the Konar family, pushing it beyond credible and into a borderline farcical series of disasters. It gets to the point where you fear for anyone who gets close to Hannah and Bo, as it seems that they'd be sentenced to an untimely death just by associating with them.
That said, the writing is SO good, with the wonderfully understated stoic presence of Bo the steadily beating heart at the center of this tale, and upon whose broad shoulders hope for the future rests. Highly recommended.

Set in a small town in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains in 1972, The Signal Flame is a lyrical, quietly beautiful novel about a family awaiting the return of their youngest son from the Vietnam War. The family has just lost their patriarch, Jozef Vinch, who survived WWI as an Austro-Hungarian conscript and travelled to American to build a life for his family. If you have read The Sojourn you are already aware of Jozef Vinch, and of the power of Krivák’s writing – but this is not a sequel per se, and knowledge of the events of The Sojourn is not necessary.

“The trees were always the first thing his grandfather spoke of in the morning, weaving a forecast for the day based on the curve of leaves or a bird he might see nesting in the branches. Or he would tell a story that began with the planting of a particular sapling…its root pack bound in burlap and sitting in the front seat of his rig like a passenger…”

The Signal Flame centres on Jozef Vinch’s stoic grandson Bo is left to work the family’s 2000 acres of logging land and hope that this newest war will return his brother safely to him. However, Sam is MIA in Vietnam, and he has left behind a pregnant girlfriend – whose father killed Sam’s father in a hunting accident. This isn’t an action-packed plot fuelled rollercoaster – it is something more. I was utterly absorbed in this immersive portrait of a family and community in this wooded territory where the cycles of soil and weather set the rhythm of the days. There is a quiet dignity to the portrayal of grief, endurance, and the importance of forgiveness in The Signal Flame, and Krivák’s sense of pace and place is close to flawless. There is a lot of sorrow in this book, and perhaps January was not the best month to read it – so I have waited until now to recommend it to you. And I highly recommend it.

This slow-burning story shows how members of a close-knit family cope with profound loss. The Signal Flame relates the legacy of multiple generations of the Konars, wealthy land-owners in rural Pennsylvania. It is the second chapter of a story begun with The Sojourn, a novel that was a finalist for the National Book Award. I haven't read the earlier book but still enjoyed this powerful sequel.

The Signal Flame opens in Dardan, a small town nestled in Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains. The family patriarch, Jozef Vinich, an Austro-Hungarian soldier who immigrated to America after World War I, has just died. Bohimur (Bo) Konar, the last remaining son, and his mother Hannah, absorb Jozef's loss as they reel from yet another: Sam Konar, the youngest of the family, has been missing in action in Vietnam for over a year. In addition to Bo and Hannah, Sam left behind a pregnant fiancée, Ruth Younger, whose family has been at odds with the Konars for generations. The Youngers were once the largest land-owners in Dardan until Ruth's grandfather sold most of the holdings to Jozef to pay off gambling debts. The Youngers have always believed they were cheated out of their property, and years later, a shocking act of violence involving Bo and Ruth's parents cements the acrimony between the clans. When Sam and Ruth started dating, Hannah considered it the height of betrayal. But now, Sam is gone and Bo and Ruth begin forming an unlikely bond over his disappearance. When Ruth suffers a devastating loss of her own, Bo and Hannah must decide if they will let Ruth into their family or if they will remain at odds with the Youngers forever.

Reading The Signal Flame is like being inside the eye of a hurricane. The story unfolds with relative calm, but death and devastation brim around the edges. It's only after reading the final page that one is aware of the emotional impact left in its wake. It's the kind of novel that gets its tenterhooks inside you and refuses to let go. Krivak evokes, with beautiful and sparse prose, the mid-century lives of blue-collar men and women as they grapple with love, grief, and forgiveness. I have never been to the Endless Mountains, but with Krivak's descriptions, I could almost feel as if I were there. Krivak describes Bo and his father going on "walks on which they had to stop and rest often, on a lush patch of crow's-foot, or the bald dome of Summit Rocks, where they could see the most of the two-thousand-acre stretch of the Vinich land."

Save for one harrowing, breathtaking passage, not much of note "happens" in the book. Stylistically, the most interesting choice Krivak makes is eschewing the use of quotation marks. While this may be jarring, it's a mark of the author's talent that it's never unclear who is speaking. Rather than distract, the result makes the narrative feel like an old, important oral history. Instead of plot-focused twists or turns, we get a glimpse into the lives of three wounded, flawed people over the course of several years. The Signal Flame may burn slowly, but it burns hot.

Although a heavy novel—death and tragedy plague the Konars like storm clouds—The Signal Flame is ultimately a testament to hope. The book's epigraph quotes Aeschylus, the Greek father of tragedy, "So now I am still awatch for the signal-flame, the gleaming fire that is to harbinger news from Troy." But the "signal flame" of the novel's title reminds us that when it comes to missing loved ones, hope takes many forms. There is the hope that the past, and therefore its memory, will not fade away forever. But there is also the hope that the future, without them, may not be so unbearable after all.

Published by Scribner on January 24, 2017

The Signal Flame begins in 1972 with the death of Bohumír Konar’s grandfather, an event that comes a few months after Bo’s brother Sam was reported missing in action in Vietnam. Sam has left behind a pregnant fiancé, Ruth Younger, whose father killed Sam’s father in a hunting accident. Sam and Bo are living with a legacy of shame, their father having been labeled a deserter in World War II.

The story backtracks to 1941, the year of Bo’s birth, when his father, Bexhet Konar, goes off to war, and quickly jumps to 1948, when Bo and his father are reunited, and jumps forward again to his father’s death. The story then follows Bo during his young life in Pennsylvania and Maryland as he makes choices about his life, choices that are shaped by love and tragedy. Eventually the narrative returns to 1972.

The harshness of life and the difficulty of forgiveness are dominant themes in The Signal Flame. The classic literary conflicts — man against man, against nature, and against himself — all contribute to the novel’s dramatic moments.

When it returns to 1972, the drama concerns Sam’s mother, who won’t forgive Ruth’s father and won’t accept Sam’s baby into her life, Bo’s entreaties to forgive notwithstanding. Ruth and Sam’s mother and brother are all coping with Sam’s MIA status, each trying to find a way to process their new lives.

Andrew Krivák evokes a strong sense of time and place to tell a small, intensely personal story of two neighboring families making their lives on a wooded mountain. Parts of The Signal Flame are remarkably sad — not in ways the reader might expect — and it is a tribute to Krivák’s prose style and sense of pace that the reader can take time with those moments without having them overwhelm the story as a whole.

The Signal Flame is a story about sadness, but it is also a story about how people endure sadness and find new ways to give their lives meaning. Different readers will find different lessons in this book. In addition to forgiveness, the story’s themes include loss as a force of bonding, the absence of closure as a source of both hope and pain, the difficulty of determining when to leave the past in the past and move into the future, the power of family memories, and the role that nature and animals play in a fulfilling life. The quiet intensity of this novel is sometimes unsettling, and those unsettling moments reflect the difficult emotional experiences that are common to every life.

RECOMMENDED

The Signal Flame follows three generations of a European immigrant family as they carve out an existence in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains. First settled by Austrian Jozef Vinich, he lives out his life on his family farm in 1971, with his widowed daughter Hannah Konar and her remaining son, Bo. The Vinich-Konar family has experienced love and loss for years through the filter of three different wars, including the Vietnam war in which Bo’s brother Sam is currently missing in action.

Jozef survived the trenches of WWI as an Austro-Hungarian soldier, before emigrating to America and raising his daughter, Hannah. Although Hannah’s husband Bexhet was born in Hungary, he fought in WWII as an American soldier – and was imprisoned for desertion under mysterious circumstances. After surviving war overseas, Bexhet returns home only to be shot in a tragic hunting accident on his own land. And while Bo is Bexhet and Hannah’s firstborn son, it is his brother Sam who follows the family military tradition in Vietnam. Bo is grieving for his brother but also has hope for his return to the land they both love – and he soon finds out that Sam has his own family to return to, when Sam’s girlfriend reveals her pregnancy.

Krivak’s first novel followed Jozef’s life, but I wouldn’t call this novel a sequel. It has echoes of the war and memory that have haunted this family for generations, although it is also an exploration of old values versus new ways of coping with grief and loss. The prose is quiet and moves slowly, giving the reader a feeling of expectation – of a life on pause. Although the novel talks about several wars, it is actually the periods of peace in between that make this family what it is.

Because of Bexhet’s death, the Vinich-Konar family has been feuding with his killer’s family – the death was an accident, and the hunter was responsible for a poor family struggling to find sustenance, but Hannah still finds it impossible to forgive him. It is in the next generation that Sam and Bo find understanding and forgiveness, especially as they and the hunter’s family are joined in unexpected ways. This novel is filled with small, intimate moments that are rich in character and place. Their emotions feel truthful and real, although I often found it hard to see below the surface of their actions.

The Signal Flame is a contemplative story, even when major dramatic incidents are occurring. The novel is bleak and tragic, but sprinkled with moments of hope. In each new generation, there is a rebirth of the family and the possibility of a future lived in peace. After decades at war, the Konars have hope for a future in which Sam’s child can grow up in safety and peace, in the Endless Mountains that they love.

I received this book from Scribner and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quiet novel where nothing much happens and yet so much does. It's character driven but you don't need to have read the first book in order to appreciate this family. The summer of 1972 was such a tough time; Krivak has done a masterful job of showing the impact of Vietnam and other changes in the world on Hannah and Bo. Krivak doesn't go for the literary fireworks. His writing is measured and self assured, making this a surprisingly slow read. Thanks to Scribner for the ARC= highly recommend for those looking for a thoughtful novel of love and loss.

A finely drawn and lyrical story of loss and resolution that avoids soapiness despite obvious and well signaled dramatic events.. Close focus and rural appreciation lend a near-female tone to events, which are few. The emphasis is on family. There are no bad characters. Reading-group friendly.

A quiet, understated book about the connection of neighboring families to the land and to each other. There is is subtlety to this book that is connecting with most readers; however, I must not have been in the right frame of mind at the time as read it (normally these are the types of books I adore). Instead of relishing the gorgeous prose I did find myself wishing the author would "get on with it". It could have been the lack of quotation marks, which I found to be a distraction, rather than an enhancement to the story.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As I finished this wonderful book I realized that it is this type of quiet novel that makes the biggest impression, leaving me with a surfeit of emotions I need to process. There are no big flashy car chases, or hunts for a killer, just a family with all the hidden layers that this entails. Heartaches, deaths, and there are plenty of both, but a great deal of love for each other and for the land. A quiet appreciation of what they have been given. Beautiful descriptions of their environment and many details about what being an owner of a sawmill entails. The story takes place in the seventies and the Vietnam War has wreaked havoc on this small family, leaving one neither dead nor alive.

Just small details of a family living their lives, but so brilliantly and poignantly written. Bittersweet and melancholy, but always hope for a better time, a better day. Wonderful characters that one can't help but take into their hearts. Strong people that have weathered much more than that which should have to ne weathered, an yet they stay strong, pull together and love each other, are their for each other.

If you love the novels of the late Ken Haruf, and Mary Lawson, I believe you will love this story and his first, The Sojourn which is also about this same family. The ending leads to the third book that will make up this trilogy.

ARC from publisher.
Releases tomorrow, January 24th.

The story is great. Loved how the characters are put together. No character was sensational but all of them were complete.

Remember Plainsong by Kent Haruf? or Burning Marguerite by Elizabeth Innes-Brown (if you missed that one, and like Kent, look it up!)? or Crow Lake by Mary Lawson? If you remember those, and remember them fondly, you should DEFINITELY look into Andrew Krivak. I didn't read The Sojourn, although I remember liking the cover when I saw it on the National Book Award list of finalists. The main character of The Sojourn, a man named Josef, opens this new novel. Living out his old age with his daughter Hannah and grandson Bo, Josef isn't the main focus of this novel. Instead, we get Bo. Probably in his mid-twenties in the late sixties, Bo and Hannah are waiting for the return of a brother/son missing in Vietnam. Sam has left behind a pregnant fiancée. There is a lot of hurt in this novel, a lot of sadness and heartache, but it is SO beautifully written. Gosh I loved every minute of it. Here is one quote that I marked down, wanting to remember: "That's the nature of loss, he said, and lifted his head and looked at his grandson. You are both lessened and left behind. There's nothing to be done but the work that's been given, so that the part of you that's lessened doesn't become lost as well."

I'm not usually a quote writer-downer, but this one really struck me. Fully recommend, if you are in the mood for a quiet, quotation-mark-less read. 5 stars.

I usually know what I want to say when I being a review. This book is harder for me to say something about. I find myself sitting in quiet contemplation while thinking about what to write and it occurs to me that this is how I see this book - a quiet contemplation on one family's life, their suffering, their loss, and their ability to rebuild.

This beautifully written book begins when the family patriarch, Jozef Vinich has died. His daughter, Hannah and his grandson, Bo Konar are sitting with the body. Their family has known loss. Jozef Vinich, a World War I Veteran who returned to America in search of a better life for himself. He is know for his work ethic, his humor and his commitment to his family. He is mourned by his mil workers, the community, his close friend (and his priest), and his family.

Jozef's daughter Hannah married Bexhet Konar who emigrated from Hungary and fought with the Americans in World War II. The killing and war were too much for him and he became a deserter and spend several years in prison for his crime of desertion. When he returns home to The Endless Mountains in Pennsylvania, he is a changed man. He is quiet and takes long walks in the woods. One day he is tragically killed while walking in the woods by a hunter.

Hannah Konar raises their two sons - Sam and Bo with the assistance of her Father Jozef. Both boys are different. Sam cannot wait to experience life. He begins a relationship with the daughter of the man who accidentally shot his father. That does not go over well. Then he serves in Vietnam and then re-enlists to go back to Vietnam where he is declared missing in action. Bo Konar decided to go to college where he fell in love but dropped out after his girlfriend was killed in an accident. He returns home to help his mother with the farm and purchases the Mil from his grandfather.

Seriously at this point, I was thinking "what more can one family take?" Seriously there is so much loss and grief. But this family lives in a time of war and loss is inevitable. They do find a way to go on. Theirs is a quiet strength. They find a way to keep moving and keep living. This is not the end of their loses; however, there is more to come. I wont give any more of the plot away.. so read this book for yourself.

I will say that I am from Pennsylvania. My hometown was actually mentioned in this book as were several other towns that I know so well. To say that it was EASY to visualize the forest, the mountains and the terrain was an understatement. I saw their farm as I saw my family's farm. I saw the clouds and fog rising off the mountains. I have walked those woods - maybe not the woods in the book - but I had such a feeling of familiarity while reading this. It was surreal.

I love how the story unfolded. Is this a book about loss? YES. But it is also a book about family, about what makes you a family, about love, about acceptance, about strength, about community, about grief, about love, about loss, about hope and about happiness. Life does go on as they say and this family finds a way to go on, to allow themselves to experience happiness in spite of the grief.

After reading this book, I learned that this is the second in the series of 3 books. I will definitely be reading the first book, "Soujourn" which is about Jozef Vinich.

This book is not a page turner, there is not big REVEAL, no HUGE plot twist at the end. What the reader has is a beautifully written book about family, about community, and day to day life. When I finished the book, I just sat with it in quiet contemplation. I believe great books do that - they leave the reader pondering and thinking. I look forward to reading the next book. I highly recommend "The Signal Flame".

I received a copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a simple story of great emotional power and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The main characters are three generations of the same family: Jozef Vinich, his daughter Hannah Konar, and her son Bo Konar. The family have had a long history with the Younger family, and Ruth Younger is the finance of Sam (brother to Bo) who is missing in Vietnam. The novel is in 3 parts roughly covering 3 months each in 1972 as they each deal with profound loss, revelations in their own and their family histories, and their own renewal. The Pennsylvanian endless Mountains is as much a character and there is a strong feeling of place in the novel.

When the book finished I didn’t want to leave the characters behind. I read somewhere that this is the second part of a trilogy, but there is no publishers note on that. I hope that is true and I feel these characters have more to share. I note that the author’s earlier work The Sojourn is about the WWII experience of the grandfather, Jozef Vinich and I look forward to picking that up. I think these novels can be read as ‘standalone’ but again this feels like there would be a wider scale here and the story of the family moves forward.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner.

His is the second book of three. The first was called The Sojourn, which covers Jozef Vinich during WW1.

In this book it tells of Vinich's family who now run a mill in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

Jozef's Grandson Sam is MIA in Vietnam. No one wants to believe that he is dead. His mother & brother are holding fort, waiting on Sam's return one day.


The family history behind this book is quite complicated and I do advise you read The Sojourn first as this will help tie up the loose threads.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Scribner and the author Andrew Kirvak for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well, looks like I've read my first truly great novel of 2017! It took two books last year, it's taken seven this year, but clearly it was worth the wait. Bleak yet hopeful, poignant, and powerful, The Signal Flame is beautifully written and draws you into its story fairly quickly.

In early 1972 in Northeastern Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains, Jozef Vinich, the patriarch of a small family, is laid to rest. The former owner of the town mill, Jozef was known not only for his rags-to-riches story, immigrating from the Austro-Hungarian part of Europe after World War I to make a life for himself, and eventually his family, but he is also known for his strong work ethic, as well as his sense of humor. He is mourned by many in the community, including his priest, who was also his best friend, but especially his daughter Hannah and his grandson Bo Konar, who bought the mill from Jozef a number of years ago.

Jozef, Hannah, and Bo all lived together, as the life of the Konar family wasn't quite a happy one. Hannah's husband, Bexhet (Becks), emigrated from Hungary to fight with the Americans during World War II, but deserted and spent time in prison. He never got over what he saw during the war, and when he returned home he was changed, until his sudden death in a hunting accident on the family land. Apart from one semester away for college, Bo has spent his lifetime working the mill, but his younger brother Sam was always the one who wanted something different, so he enlisted in the military, and on his second tour of duty in Vietnam, went missing.

As bleak as I've made the book sound, and there are moments of tragedy and moments of loss, this is equally a book about finding hope where you've believed there was none, of realizing that there is a time to let go of the grief and anger you feel, and of allowing yourself a chance at happiness. This is a book about family, about the legacies of land and emotion and anger that we bequeath to our children, and about the simple joys of nature, the smell of lumber, the sounds of wildlife.

In another author's hands this book could be maudlin, or the simplicity of its story could be boring. But in Andrew Krivak's hands, this book is almost poetic, in its use of language and its evocative imagery, in the characters he has created. Here's just one example of the beauty of his storytelling:

And when they were finished, they sat at the garden table in the twilight and watched the coals of the fire pulse red and an ashen silver without flame, sat like sated guests at their own feast, silent once again and not wondering what came next, for all that they had strived for in the course of the day lay in the past, and what anxiety each carried lay, at least for the moment, in the past as well.

This is a special book which I can't get out of my mind. I know that when I begin thinking of the best books I read in 2017, this will undoubtedly be one of them.

NetGalley and Scribner provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

This book is really a sequel to The Sojourn which tells the story of the formative years of Jozef Vinich. At the beginning of The Signal Flame, Jozef has just died. Left to mourn him are Hannah Konar, his daughter, and Bo, his grandson.

The novel is set in 1972 in northeastern Pennsylvania. Hannah, a widow, waits for the return of her youngest son Sam, a Marine who has been designated as Missing in Action. Bo, the older son, runs the family business, a roughing mill. He also keeps a protective eye on Ruth Younger, Sam’s fiancée, whose family has had a problematic relationship with Jozef’s family.

This is a slow-paced novel, driven by character rather than plot. The characters are round characters who feel like real people. Bo is the best example of the fully-developed characters. He is a quiet, dignified man with a strong sense of duty and a strong work ethic. A steady, responsible person, he always tries to do what is right. He remembers what his grandfather taught him and manages the business so that employees are respected and treated fairly.

One of the themes is the damage that war inflicts on families. Though there are no battle scenes, war is very much a presence in the novel. It could be said that families are the collateral damage. Hannah’s husband fought in World War II and returned “a hollow man”; and Sam enlisted to fight in Vietnam and his family continues to deal with losing him. Reference is made to Jozef’s experiences in World War I and to one of Ruth’s ancestors fighting at Gettysburg. The indictment of war is done indirectly, though a character cites a relevant statement by Thucydides: “When a great confederacy, in order to satisfy private grudges, undertakes a war of which no man can foresee the issue, it is not easy to terminate it with honour.”

The book is really about people trying to come to terms with loss. Hannah, mourning the loss of her husband, father and a son, has concluded that loss is the only certainty in life: “she had come to believe that the only thing one could be certain of was loss. The loss of others as one lived on. Loss as the last thing one left behind.” Virtually everyone in the novel grieves the loss of a loved one. We learn about loss Bo experienced in the past as we see him mourning the loss of his beloved grandfather; Ruth’s fiancé is missing and she loses “in one day what most would mourn in a lifetime”; even the local priest contends with losing a dear friend. The lesson about loss is perhaps best expressed by Jozef in a conversation with Bo: “That’s the nature of loss . . . You are both lessened and left behind. There’s nothing to be done but the work that’s been given, so the part of you that’s lessened doesn’t become lost as well.”

The characters in the novel are ordinary people. There is a realism to them as they lead their ordinary lives. Sometimes, however, there is almost too much of an effort to show this ordinariness by including excessive detail. For instance, Bo goes to check out a used saw he is thinking of buying: “It was a DL 750, built in ’52 by the serial number . . . It would need a new chain, but the lubrication unit was intact and most likely operative. He took off the spindle housing, and the air gap clearance between the rotor and the stator was fine. Then he checked the pressure roll assembly for wear and axial play, and everything looked good. Even the guide rail and the stock rail were in nice shape.” Is all this detail really necessary?

The ending is rather predictable, but, as I’ve already stated, plot is not the most important element. There is a genuineness to the characters and their lives which will remain with the reader who will also contemplate the losses in his/her own life.

Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.