Review by Malcolm Martland, 19 October 2008
This is just the sort of book I probably would not have picked up if it was not for the book club – but we discussed titles for the Galaxy Book Awards so when I found this in the charity shop I grabbed it – and I’m glad I did.
Brilliant tale of enduring love in 2 separate stories - one in 1917-1919 the other is present day - but the 2 stories ultimately intertwine. Both are related fairly exclusively from the male point of view - it becomes clear why in the Epilogue when the author's relationship to the characters is explained.
The book begins with the modern tale of Leo waking in hospital after a bus crash in Ecuador. His girlfriend Eleni is the only fatal casualty – they were in love and besotted with each other. Leo relives time after time the bus crash I the mountains – then there are the details of how to get her body home to Greece – and there is no Greek embassy in Ecuador. Some are kind to Leo – others less so. Eventually after her funeral Leo returns to his post graduate studies into ant behaviour – but he calls the queen ant Eleni – he becomes lost in his own world – losing his sanity too - and his friends – try as they might – cannot get through his grief to help him. Eventually he befriends a physicist who describes the empathy between electrons that collide – and the parallels to Leo’s own emotions.
The other story is of Austrian Moritz Danieki in world war 1 – he falls in love with a wealthy furriers daughter Lotte – but just after he has kissed her for the first time he is sent to fight – he is captured by the Imperial Russian army and sent to Siberia – from here he escapes and sets out to get back to his home town in Austria to find his beloved Lotte. He basically has to walks back from Siberia to Austria and there are harrowing but inspiring tales of Moritz Danieki's survival in post war and post revolutionary USSR.
The two stories come together in an unexpected way – but you’ll have to read it to find out why.
A great 1st novel – I’d certainly put it in my top 5 reads for 2008.
Show host: I have an exert from an interview the author did with the Sunday Times:'Both my parents are Jewish immigrants, my book Random Acts of Heroic Love, is loosely based on my dad's dad who was captured by the Russians in the first world war. He died of kidney failure when dad was three. Dad was brought over to Manchester from Germany just one week before the second world war broke out, as part of the Kindertransport. His mum was supposed to follow him over to this country, but she never made it. She was killed in Aushwitz. He never knew what happened to her until he got a letter from the Red Cross a few years later. My parents were never bitter or cynical, always welcoming and open. As far as they were concerned the most important thing was happiness.
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