Helen Maryles Shankman

This is a bit hard to evaluate objectively—linked short stories set in the Polish town of Wlodowa in the first half of WWII, for the most part. As you'd expect, a lot of examination of cruelty, guilt, culpability, the banality of evil, and some of it is, obviously, painful. As it should be—I found myself having a small internal dialogue: "Don't we get a story with a glimmer of humanity or an upbeat ending?" "Lisa, this book is about the Holocaust." (There are a few moments, but... it's a book about the Holocaust.) So it's hard to pull back and just think about the writing and plotting. Much of it was really good, and the writing itself is lovely. I think she was most successful when Shankman moved away from the magical realism elements—I'm not someone who hates all magical realism with a white hot fury, but it's hard to do, and even though I totally get what she's doing with the element of Jewish folk tales, I feel like they detracted from several of the stories. All in all worth reading, but have something a bit lighter to look at in between stories (like, you know, the Washington Post).… (mais)

This collection of interconnected short stories holds considerable promise: magic realism meets WWII-era occupied Poland. I loved the architecture, how the stories looped around unexpectedly and became one tangled mess. The best stories were superb, layered tales of beauty and astonishment. These are stories where brutal reality and heartfelt magic collide against a backdrop of vivid color.

As a whole though, In the Land of Armadillos left an acidic taste in my mouth that gives me pause to honor this book with the highest praise. How can I best describe it? At their best, the stories in this collection are heartbreaking and relevant, but the stories can grow a bit maudlin, a tad overcloying in their sentimentality. If Hallmark commissioned Salman Rushdie to produce a WWII miniseries for their network, I think it would look a little like this. It wouldn't necessarily be a bad production, but it would feel off, you know what I'm saying?… (mais)