You’ll simply feel his story rolling past you, in the manner of an old Peugeot. You’ll rarely catch O’Nan being an author. “City of Secrets” is, by inclination and design, quiet and finite, but its impact is deceptively large because O’Nan (“ West of Sunset,” “ Emily, Alone”) has something that can’t be taught to a writer - and can indeed be unlearned by talented writers: the gift of authenticity. Outside the Dung Gate, in the Valley of Hinnom, the jackals were hunting.” In the middle of a dream, walking the streets of Riga, woke to a mournful baying - a lonely dog, he thought, and then it was joined by another, and another, an entire pack.
City of secrets author stewart windows#
“Back at Eva’s flat they had a nightcap under the stars in her little roof garden, Benny Goodman tootling from the other room, and slept with the windows open.
In this kindling time, even the happiest moments bristle with danger. (Brand drives her to her assignations.) Not Jerusalem itself: “a puzzle box built of symbols, a confusion of old and new,” threatening at any moment to explode.
Not his girlfriend and fellow freedom fighter, Eva, a scarred former actress reduced to working as a call girl at the King David Hotel. Certainly not Brand, coaxed and coerced by his clandestine cell into ever more dangerous assignments. In fact, no one is safe in “ City of Secrets,” Stewart O’Nan’s biting, bruising, achingly sad historical novel. He’s been around enough to know that “as a Jew you were never safe.” "City of Secrets" by Stewart O'Nan ( Viking)īrand knows that if he’s ever taken in for questioning, his fake identity will get him deported.
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