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Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright
Love does not conquer all, but when all of Europe is on fire, it’s better than going to hell alone.
Twelve years of terror end with a world in flames. Behind filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s stirring footage of a million joyous patriots, the horror of Nazi Germany slowly unfolds. It engulfs Katja Sommer, a “good German” with dangerous desires; Frederica Brandt, a traitor to her homeland; Rudi Lamm, a homosexual camp survivor and forced killer for Hitler; and Peter Arnhelm, a half-Jewish “terrorist” who lives with tigers. Under the scrutiny of the familiar monsters of the Third Reich, their enablers, and their hangers-on, these four struggle for life and for each other. Love does not conquer all, but it’s far better than going to hell alone.
Twelve years of terror end with a world in flames. Behind filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s stirring footage of a million joyous patriots, the horror of Nazi Germany slowly unfolds. It engulfs Katja Sommer, a “good German” with dangerous desires; Frederica Brandt, a traitor to her homeland; Rudi Lamm, a homosexual camp survivor and forced killer for Hitler; and Peter Arnhelm, a half-Jewish “terrorist” who lives with tigers. Under the scrutiny of the familiar monsters of the Third Reich, their enablers, and their hangers-on, these four struggle for life and for each other. Love does not conquer all, but it’s far better than going to hell alone.
264 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2012
6 people are currently reading
171 people want to read
About the author
Justine Saracen
14 books34 followersFrom the author's website: How a mild-mannered academic went astray and began writing lesbian fiction:
A recovered academic, Justine Saracen started out producing dreary theses, dissertations and articles for esoteric literary journals. Writing fiction, it turned out, was way more fun. With seven historical thrillers now under her literary belt, she has moved from Ancient Egyptian theology (The 100th Generation) to the Crusades (2007 Lammy-nominated Vulture’s Kiss) to the Roman Renaissance.
Sistine Heresy, which conjures up a thoroughly blasphemic backstory to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, won a 2009 Independent Publisher’s Award (IPPY) and was a finalist in the ForeWord Book of the Year Award.
A few centuries farther along, WWII thriller Mephisto Aria, was a finalist in the EPIC award competition, won Rainbow awards for Best Historical Novel and Best Writing Style, and took the 2011 Golden Crown first prize for best historical novel.
The Eddie Izzard inspired novel, Sarah, Son of God followed soon after. In the story within a story, a transgendered beauty takes us through Stonewall- rioting New York, Venice under the Inquisition, and Nero’s Rome. The novel won the Rainbow First Prize for Best Transgendered Novel.
Her second WWII thriller Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright, which follows the lives of four homosexuals during the Third Reich, won the 2012 Rainbow First Prize for Historical Novel. Having lived in Germany and taught courses on 20th Century German history, Justine is deeply engaged in the moral issues of the ‘urge to war’ and the ease with which it infects.
Beloved Gomorrah, appearing March 2013, marks a return to her critique of Bible myths – in this case an LGBT version of Sodom and Gomorrah -- though it also involves a lot of Red Sea diving and the dangerous allure of a certain Hollywood actress.
Saracen lives on a “charming little winding street in Brussels.” Being an adopted European has brought her close to the memories of WWII and engendered a sort of obsession with the war years. Waiting for the Violins, her work in progress, tells of an English nurse, nearly killed while fleeing Dunkirk, who returns as a British spy and joins forces with the Belgian resistance. In a year of constant terror, she discovers both betrayal and heroism and learns how very costly love can be.
When dwelling in reality, Justine’s favorite pursuits are scuba diving and listening to opera.
A recovered academic, Justine Saracen started out producing dreary theses, dissertations and articles for esoteric literary journals. Writing fiction, it turned out, was way more fun. With seven historical thrillers now under her literary belt, she has moved from Ancient Egyptian theology (The 100th Generation) to the Crusades (2007 Lammy-nominated Vulture’s Kiss) to the Roman Renaissance.
Sistine Heresy, which conjures up a thoroughly blasphemic backstory to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, won a 2009 Independent Publisher’s Award (IPPY) and was a finalist in the ForeWord Book of the Year Award.
A few centuries farther along, WWII thriller Mephisto Aria, was a finalist in the EPIC award competition, won Rainbow awards for Best Historical Novel and Best Writing Style, and took the 2011 Golden Crown first prize for best historical novel.
The Eddie Izzard inspired novel, Sarah, Son of God followed soon after. In the story within a story, a transgendered beauty takes us through Stonewall- rioting New York, Venice under the Inquisition, and Nero’s Rome. The novel won the Rainbow First Prize for Best Transgendered Novel.
Her second WWII thriller Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright, which follows the lives of four homosexuals during the Third Reich, won the 2012 Rainbow First Prize for Historical Novel. Having lived in Germany and taught courses on 20th Century German history, Justine is deeply engaged in the moral issues of the ‘urge to war’ and the ease with which it infects.
Beloved Gomorrah, appearing March 2013, marks a return to her critique of Bible myths – in this case an LGBT version of Sodom and Gomorrah -- though it also involves a lot of Red Sea diving and the dangerous allure of a certain Hollywood actress.
Saracen lives on a “charming little winding street in Brussels.” Being an adopted European has brought her close to the memories of WWII and engendered a sort of obsession with the war years. Waiting for the Violins, her work in progress, tells of an English nurse, nearly killed while fleeing Dunkirk, who returns as a British spy and joins forces with the Belgian resistance. In a year of constant terror, she discovers both betrayal and heroism and learns how very costly love can be.
When dwelling in reality, Justine’s favorite pursuits are scuba diving and listening to opera.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 19, 2016
Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright starts in 1934, when the Nazis are solidifying their power over German. A group of thirteen Germans are working on a (real) propaganda film, Triumph des Willens. The coming years will change them all, even as their lives continue to intersect. Although there are thirteen of them (including at least one "real" person, Leni Riefenstahl), there are four "main" characters.
There is Frederica, a half-German, half-British woman who gains access to the inner ranks of the Nazi elite as Goebbels' secretary. But things are not as they seem; she's working for the SOE, a British intelligence agency.
Katja, the daughter of a violinist, is a dutiful German who is puzzled by the fact that she feels little to no attraction to her fiance, Dietrich, a Wehrmacht soldier. When Frederica kisses her, she finally feels attraction - and responds by rushing into a marriage with Dietrich. But her path crosses with Frederica again, and the sparks between them can't be ignored.
Then there is Rudi, a photographer who is in violation of Paragraph 175. Sent to a concentration camp, he joins a penal regiment in an effort to save his life. But he's turned into a killer.
Finally, there is Peter, Rudi's partner. He's half-Jewish, and he spends most of the war as a zookeeper and doing what little he can to harm to Reich.
There are a host of other, secondary, characters along the way, and the author seamlessly blends in "real" people, from the upper echelon of the Nazi Party (Goebbels, his wife, Hitler, Eva Braun), as well as Tradl Junge, British undercover agents, and a Russian photographer.
At first, I didn't really like the author's narrative voice; there was just something that didn't click with me. But as I continued the book, I apparently adapted to it, and I was drawn into the world. The book is literally crammed with historical facts, and as a history nerd, this greatly appealed to me (as well as spotting the names of "real" people that I recognized from other biographies/memoirs/books/etc).
I also enjoyed Frederica and Katja's relationship. It evolved slowly and never felt rushed, unlike in many lesbian books.
The book could have been better edited (there were numerous missing quotation marks throughout the book), but as Bold Stroke Books is a smaller publishing house, I'm willing to overlook that, especially since the book was so good.
The only real complaint I have is that there were just too many coincidental meetings and the like. Characters who knew each other from years past kept running into one another at a rate that boggles the mind. In a country the size of Germany, especially one that is torn apart and ravaged by war, it was just unbelievable.
Still, this book is a highly recommended read.
There is Frederica, a half-German, half-British woman who gains access to the inner ranks of the Nazi elite as Goebbels' secretary. But things are not as they seem; she's working for the SOE, a British intelligence agency.
Katja, the daughter of a violinist, is a dutiful German who is puzzled by the fact that she feels little to no attraction to her fiance, Dietrich, a Wehrmacht soldier. When Frederica kisses her, she finally feels attraction - and responds by rushing into a marriage with Dietrich. But her path crosses with Frederica again, and the sparks between them can't be ignored.
Then there is Rudi, a photographer who is in violation of Paragraph 175. Sent to a concentration camp, he joins a penal regiment in an effort to save his life. But he's turned into a killer.
Finally, there is Peter, Rudi's partner. He's half-Jewish, and he spends most of the war as a zookeeper and doing what little he can to harm to Reich.
There are a host of other, secondary, characters along the way, and the author seamlessly blends in "real" people, from the upper echelon of the Nazi Party (Goebbels, his wife, Hitler, Eva Braun), as well as Tradl Junge, British undercover agents, and a Russian photographer.
At first, I didn't really like the author's narrative voice; there was just something that didn't click with me. But as I continued the book, I apparently adapted to it, and I was drawn into the world. The book is literally crammed with historical facts, and as a history nerd, this greatly appealed to me (as well as spotting the names of "real" people that I recognized from other biographies/memoirs/books/etc).
I also enjoyed Frederica and Katja's relationship. It evolved slowly and never felt rushed, unlike in many lesbian books.
The book could have been better edited (there were numerous missing quotation marks throughout the book), but as Bold Stroke Books is a smaller publishing house, I'm willing to overlook that, especially since the book was so good.
The only real complaint I have is that there were just too many coincidental meetings and the like. Characters who knew each other from years past kept running into one another at a rate that boggles the mind. In a country the size of Germany, especially one that is torn apart and ravaged by war, it was just unbelievable.
Still, this book is a highly recommended read.
March 18, 2012
Four and a half stars, rounded up to five.
Tyger Tyger Burning Bright is not your standard lesfic. This is a fascinating novel that spans an eleven year period, from the filming of the Triumph of Will during the 1934 German Party Congress in Nuremberg to the end of WW II in 1945. Saracen blends historical and fictional characters seamlessly and brings authenticity to the story, focusing on the impacts of this time on “regular, normal people” who find themselves dragged into events that they neither expected nor wanted and how it transformed each of them for better or for worse. Tyger Tyger isn’t a book about blame or right and wrong – it is a book that stays in the gray, raising a number of questions and issues in the reader’s mind that will stay with you long after you close the cover.
Full review found here:
http://reviews.c-spot.net/archives/3974
Tyger Tyger Burning Bright is not your standard lesfic. This is a fascinating novel that spans an eleven year period, from the filming of the Triumph of Will during the 1934 German Party Congress in Nuremberg to the end of WW II in 1945. Saracen blends historical and fictional characters seamlessly and brings authenticity to the story, focusing on the impacts of this time on “regular, normal people” who find themselves dragged into events that they neither expected nor wanted and how it transformed each of them for better or for worse. Tyger Tyger isn’t a book about blame or right and wrong – it is a book that stays in the gray, raising a number of questions and issues in the reader’s mind that will stay with you long after you close the cover.
Full review found here:
http://reviews.c-spot.net/archives/3974
April 29, 2012
A tricky rating situation. If I'm rating it against traditional Lesfic (which this book absolutely is NOT), it's off the charts. If I'm rating it against mainstream fiction, it's a 4+.
I actually read the blurb when I first saw the book but didn’t remember any of it when I picked it up to read. I’m glad I didn’t, as I felt a few important plot points were given away in the blurb. The author does an excellent job focusing primarily on the arcs of the four main characters set against the tumultuous timeline. The book is very visual, with nods to photography and propaganda films that were integral to the Nazi party. One of the biggest images that happens near the beginning (after the Triumph of Will) is the portrayal of 13 individuals in a photo reminiscent of the Last Supper. These characters will be revisited throughout the story, but most of the book is told from Katja’s perspective, with some time devoted to all four major characters. However, the perspective does shift eventually to nearly all the original 13 characters, which I found jarring at first, but got used to. I can understand why the author chose to jump to the different perspectives, as all characters in the story undergo some form of transformation in order to survive. Whether it be through silence/ambivalence, subterfuge, forced recruitment, or outright terrorism.
Highly recommended.
I did a dual review with another person on the review site. See it at C-Spot
I actually read the blurb when I first saw the book but didn’t remember any of it when I picked it up to read. I’m glad I didn’t, as I felt a few important plot points were given away in the blurb. The author does an excellent job focusing primarily on the arcs of the four main characters set against the tumultuous timeline. The book is very visual, with nods to photography and propaganda films that were integral to the Nazi party. One of the biggest images that happens near the beginning (after the Triumph of Will) is the portrayal of 13 individuals in a photo reminiscent of the Last Supper. These characters will be revisited throughout the story, but most of the book is told from Katja’s perspective, with some time devoted to all four major characters. However, the perspective does shift eventually to nearly all the original 13 characters, which I found jarring at first, but got used to. I can understand why the author chose to jump to the different perspectives, as all characters in the story undergo some form of transformation in order to survive. Whether it be through silence/ambivalence, subterfuge, forced recruitment, or outright terrorism.
Highly recommended.
I did a dual review with another person on the review site. See it at C-Spot
April 8, 2012
My computer stalled as I was writing my review, so here is what I felt as I followed the characters and the people they encountered, like many stories it held many emotions, from happy to sad, from elation to frustration, but the strongest was anger! Anger at a nation, at a people who could commit such acts and try to justify them as neccessary as a cleansing to Their survival, was just wrong. It's sad to know that there are still those out there with these same beliefs today.
December 19, 2016
Love books that involve history. Just wish there was a solid epilogue that came with the story.
April 27, 2012
I didn't learn in school that "homosexuals" were a group targeted by the Nazis. I distinctly remember first hearing about it in the late 80s from the silence = death campaign created during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. When I came across Justine Saracen's new novel, Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright, I was intrigued by its focus on gay and lesbian Germans trying to negotiate the Nazi regime and WWII.
The novel covers twelve years (from September 8, 1935 to April 18, 1945) in the lives of several characters and explores what each does or doesn't do to resist the barbarity of Nazism and cope with the horrors of war. There were some surprises within the story that I didn't see coming and the novel kept up at a good pace.
The opening scene is right out of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens, 1935). It literally is. The novel opens on September 8, 1934 with Katja Sommer, the main protagonist, wrapping up the filming of Riefenstahl's masterpiece in Nuremberg. Katja is a young women hoping to build a career in film making, but the job with Riefenstahl was only temporary. Katja is engaged to Dietrich, but is in no hurry to marry her kind, but dull fiancé who is already succumbing to the Nazi's propaganda such as the proper role for women within the Reich (make babies, keep house).
Everyone is full of hope and excitement over the creation of this film, but already there are rumblings of trouble. Riefenstahl insists that the movie she's creating is not propaganda for the Nazi Party. She may declare that "Art is not political," but readers know what is about to unfold.
While Dietrich is off serving in the army, Katja scores a full-time job working for Riefenstahl. She befriends two men, Rudi and Peter, who, she comes to realize, are lovers. Then there's her odd attraction to Frederica Brandt who used to work for Riefenstahl, but now works for Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda. Katja is doing her best to go along with the flow, but when a friend is arrested under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code (prohibiting male homosexuality) her perspective on what makes one a "Good German" shifts.
The plot really takes off from there and I won't go into more detail because to do so would spoil the reading.
The only stumbling point I had with the novel is that Saracen takes her scenes of the fall of Berlin from the movie Downfall (Der Untergang, 2004) to a degree that made me uncomfortable. It made sense to replicate part of Triumph of the Will in the opening of the novel because the creation of that film is part of the actual story Saracen creates. In a postscript she acknowledges "drawing from" Der Untergang, which I was relieved to see, but it still doesn't sit well with me.
But don't let that keep you from reading Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright. It's a historical novel that is both gripping and heartfelt. I hope it finds a wide audience.
The novel covers twelve years (from September 8, 1935 to April 18, 1945) in the lives of several characters and explores what each does or doesn't do to resist the barbarity of Nazism and cope with the horrors of war. There were some surprises within the story that I didn't see coming and the novel kept up at a good pace.
The opening scene is right out of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens, 1935). It literally is. The novel opens on September 8, 1934 with Katja Sommer, the main protagonist, wrapping up the filming of Riefenstahl's masterpiece in Nuremberg. Katja is a young women hoping to build a career in film making, but the job with Riefenstahl was only temporary. Katja is engaged to Dietrich, but is in no hurry to marry her kind, but dull fiancé who is already succumbing to the Nazi's propaganda such as the proper role for women within the Reich (make babies, keep house).
Everyone is full of hope and excitement over the creation of this film, but already there are rumblings of trouble. Riefenstahl insists that the movie she's creating is not propaganda for the Nazi Party. She may declare that "Art is not political," but readers know what is about to unfold.
While Dietrich is off serving in the army, Katja scores a full-time job working for Riefenstahl. She befriends two men, Rudi and Peter, who, she comes to realize, are lovers. Then there's her odd attraction to Frederica Brandt who used to work for Riefenstahl, but now works for Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda. Katja is doing her best to go along with the flow, but when a friend is arrested under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code (prohibiting male homosexuality) her perspective on what makes one a "Good German" shifts.
The plot really takes off from there and I won't go into more detail because to do so would spoil the reading.
The only stumbling point I had with the novel is that Saracen takes her scenes of the fall of Berlin from the movie Downfall (Der Untergang, 2004) to a degree that made me uncomfortable. It made sense to replicate part of Triumph of the Will in the opening of the novel because the creation of that film is part of the actual story Saracen creates. In a postscript she acknowledges "drawing from" Der Untergang, which I was relieved to see, but it still doesn't sit well with me.
But don't let that keep you from reading Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright. It's a historical novel that is both gripping and heartfelt. I hope it finds a wide audience.
February 17, 2012
First off, let me say that TYGER, TYGER, BURNING BRIGHT is NOT Nazi propaganda (I'm looking at YOU, Photobucket!). It's a book about German citizens, four in particular who are gay, fighting the regime from the inside. Two end up in camps with one signing up for the SS in order to get out, one goes into hiding in plain sight and the fourth bides her time working for the Ministry of Propaganda in order to smuggle confidential information out of the country to the Allies.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a total sucker for World War II era books. I love them. In order for me not to love it it's need to tank pretty badly. And aside from some pretty mechanical writing, TYGER, TYGER was a pretty good story. What I especially liked reading was the war from a perspective other than the Americans or British. Seeing it from behind enemy lines, from traitorous people working against the fascist regime, it gives that whole era yet another dimension that one wouldn't get from just reading it through a single set of eyes.
The story, for the most part, is through Katja's eyes, alternating to Frederica, Rudi and Peter for short amounts of time but you end up feeling for them all. Irrespective of the style of writing, when the camps come into play and two of the characters end up with first hand accounts, nothing is glossed over. To see what the Germans did to their own people is horrifying and TYGER, TYGER didn't cut corners with that. In fact that's when I felt the book was being the most detailed and gritty: when it was describing the horror around the characters. Their lives were a little dry and at times emotionless but when the outside came in, it came with a force that knocked everything else away. It was just so powerful that I was literally taken aback when reading certain parts of the story.
I also liked how this could have really happened. Real people were used, like Goebbels and Riefenstahl and the things that happened in their lives happened in this book. It rooted the more dramatic aspects, like the level to which Frederica gets, into greater reality. While it probably didn't happen, it felt like it could have reading the story.
Because of the mechanical writing it did feel like it was missing something. I think at times it could have been a passion. Yes the events that were recounted hit deeply and I could feel what the characters were going through but at times it felt more like a statement than a story. Good, yes, but a bit too technical. But really that would probably be my only complaint about TYGER, TYGER. Everything else hits home quite well.
If you're a World War II reader like I am, you'll want to add TYGER, TYGER, BURNING BRIGHT to your list of reading material. For it's single fault, it provides a great story through relatively unfamiliar eyes and I think it's because of that that makes the story feel somehow fresher than a lot of other WWII fiction out there. At least to this American.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm a total sucker for World War II era books. I love them. In order for me not to love it it's need to tank pretty badly. And aside from some pretty mechanical writing, TYGER, TYGER was a pretty good story. What I especially liked reading was the war from a perspective other than the Americans or British. Seeing it from behind enemy lines, from traitorous people working against the fascist regime, it gives that whole era yet another dimension that one wouldn't get from just reading it through a single set of eyes.
The story, for the most part, is through Katja's eyes, alternating to Frederica, Rudi and Peter for short amounts of time but you end up feeling for them all. Irrespective of the style of writing, when the camps come into play and two of the characters end up with first hand accounts, nothing is glossed over. To see what the Germans did to their own people is horrifying and TYGER, TYGER didn't cut corners with that. In fact that's when I felt the book was being the most detailed and gritty: when it was describing the horror around the characters. Their lives were a little dry and at times emotionless but when the outside came in, it came with a force that knocked everything else away. It was just so powerful that I was literally taken aback when reading certain parts of the story.
I also liked how this could have really happened. Real people were used, like Goebbels and Riefenstahl and the things that happened in their lives happened in this book. It rooted the more dramatic aspects, like the level to which Frederica gets, into greater reality. While it probably didn't happen, it felt like it could have reading the story.
Because of the mechanical writing it did feel like it was missing something. I think at times it could have been a passion. Yes the events that were recounted hit deeply and I could feel what the characters were going through but at times it felt more like a statement than a story. Good, yes, but a bit too technical. But really that would probably be my only complaint about TYGER, TYGER. Everything else hits home quite well.
If you're a World War II reader like I am, you'll want to add TYGER, TYGER, BURNING BRIGHT to your list of reading material. For it's single fault, it provides a great story through relatively unfamiliar eyes and I think it's because of that that makes the story feel somehow fresher than a lot of other WWII fiction out there. At least to this American.
April 30, 2014
Justine Saracen's books never let you down. You know she will always come up with a clever take on an old story, the obvious always discarded in favour of a fresh, fascinating point of view. And there is comfort and confidence in knowing that all the detail will be right, all the research will have been done meticulously, the writing will flow in an economical and unmannered way, and nothing will impede the story. Usually the starting point is a known episode in history or ancient record, plus an insider protagonist with whom the reader can identify who will plunge (or be plunged) into the action.
Nobody who has seen clips from The Triumph of the Will can deny the impact it can still have on the viewer. Both it and its creator become a motif in the story of Katja Sommer, who as a junior participant in the making of the epic, gives us a view of what it might have been like to be dazzled by the genius of the glamorous Leni Riefenstahl, and the rock-concert hysteria of Hitler's stadium speeches.
However, Katja fails to sleepwalk into the Nazi mindset like so many of her countrymen, and it is her awakening to its realities and her subsequent actions which are at the heart of the story. Her love for a fellow-conspirator lends knife-edge tension to dangerous situations, as if the perils of living in a city under continual attack weren't enough. Saracen recreates war-riven Berlin in a matter-of-fact, almost filmic way, a perspective which draws us irresistibly into the period. We actually meet the odious Goebbels and hold our breath when in his presence; knowing his fate does nothing to diminish his aura of menace.
As an avid fan of footnotes, I appreciate both the historical overview of the Postscript, and also the helpful Glossary.
This is a cracker of a read, and I highly recommend it.
Nobody who has seen clips from The Triumph of the Will can deny the impact it can still have on the viewer. Both it and its creator become a motif in the story of Katja Sommer, who as a junior participant in the making of the epic, gives us a view of what it might have been like to be dazzled by the genius of the glamorous Leni Riefenstahl, and the rock-concert hysteria of Hitler's stadium speeches.
However, Katja fails to sleepwalk into the Nazi mindset like so many of her countrymen, and it is her awakening to its realities and her subsequent actions which are at the heart of the story. Her love for a fellow-conspirator lends knife-edge tension to dangerous situations, as if the perils of living in a city under continual attack weren't enough. Saracen recreates war-riven Berlin in a matter-of-fact, almost filmic way, a perspective which draws us irresistibly into the period. We actually meet the odious Goebbels and hold our breath when in his presence; knowing his fate does nothing to diminish his aura of menace.
As an avid fan of footnotes, I appreciate both the historical overview of the Postscript, and also the helpful Glossary.
This is a cracker of a read, and I highly recommend it.
March 26, 2012
I expected your typical lesbian love story but what I got was something completely different. Saracen gives us a history lesson of what it was like to live in Berlin during Hitlers rein. We watch Katja struggle with what is happening in the world around her and with the changes she sees in her homeland and her military husband. She finds herself being drawn closer to Frederica Brandt one of the secretaries for a top Nazi in the department of Propaganda. When her affection turns to love and when she realizes that several other of her friends are considered perverts for similar feelings Katja starts to question her loyalty to Germany and to her husband. When Katja watches as one of her good friends is imprisoned in a concentration camp for being gay she can't take it anymore and joins the resistance movement.
There are many books about what happened to the Jews during Hitlers time in power but rarely do we hear the stories of the gay and lesbians who were imprisoned for loving the wrong people or the regular people who were imprisoned for minor infractions as political prisoners of war. All were treated horrible, tortured and killed, held in concentration camps and subjected to the same treatment you read about in other stories of the holocaust. Saracens book tells this little known history and its riveting. Interweaving real speeches, and real people into the story only makes this book stand out more. Very well researched and written. It deserves a wide audience.
There are many books about what happened to the Jews during Hitlers time in power but rarely do we hear the stories of the gay and lesbians who were imprisoned for loving the wrong people or the regular people who were imprisoned for minor infractions as political prisoners of war. All were treated horrible, tortured and killed, held in concentration camps and subjected to the same treatment you read about in other stories of the holocaust. Saracens book tells this little known history and its riveting. Interweaving real speeches, and real people into the story only makes this book stand out more. Very well researched and written. It deserves a wide audience.
July 23, 2014
just finished Tyger, Tyger and it was surprisingly good - I had some expectations as I requested it after all, but since it was marked as LGBT fiction, I expected something more same-sex romantic with historical fiction on the side and actually the book is the other way around, historical fiction with the LGBT stuff important but integrated very well.
I will have a full rv soon but one more point I want to add is that the author recreated very well the times and the book's quite matter of fact tone for most part - there are a few horrific scenes in the concentration camps and on the Russian front that are rendered very well too and add quite a lot to the power of the novel - works very well and makes a good counterpoint to the more usual (at least in my experience) "dramatic' tone encountered in novels about the 3rd Reich; after all people lived, loved and for most part rationalized away what happened or hated it but felt unable to do anything about or of course embraced it at least to some extent and for some time...
The author shows all the above and the novel works extremely well, while the last maybe 2/3 that covers the war years is also quite a page turner
I will have a full rv soon but one more point I want to add is that the author recreated very well the times and the book's quite matter of fact tone for most part - there are a few horrific scenes in the concentration camps and on the Russian front that are rendered very well too and add quite a lot to the power of the novel - works very well and makes a good counterpoint to the more usual (at least in my experience) "dramatic' tone encountered in novels about the 3rd Reich; after all people lived, loved and for most part rationalized away what happened or hated it but felt unable to do anything about or of course embraced it at least to some extent and for some time...
The author shows all the above and the novel works extremely well, while the last maybe 2/3 that covers the war years is also quite a page turner
February 26, 2012
Received early copy from Net Galley
This book was one that caught my interests immediately with the description. WWII and some LGBT from the 40's? Yes.
I read this as a fiction tale and then come to find out much of it was true. I wish this book was longer though - I could have used a bit more of the history going on - the descriptive telling seemed a bit rushed.
BUT I loved it. I'll recommend it to everyone I know (which are quite a few people) that would love this historical fiction.
The only thing that was weird to me was the postscript. The author seemed to be defending herself to her critics before it even is released to the public. Just let it be - though without the post script I wouldn't have known that some of this was in fact true history.
Loved it. Pick it up. Easy and great read!
This book was one that caught my interests immediately with the description. WWII and some LGBT from the 40's? Yes.
I read this as a fiction tale and then come to find out much of it was true. I wish this book was longer though - I could have used a bit more of the history going on - the descriptive telling seemed a bit rushed.
BUT I loved it. I'll recommend it to everyone I know (which are quite a few people) that would love this historical fiction.
The only thing that was weird to me was the postscript. The author seemed to be defending herself to her critics before it even is released to the public. Just let it be - though without the post script I wouldn't have known that some of this was in fact true history.
Loved it. Pick it up. Easy and great read!
November 24, 2018
I liked this a lot. There’s a lesbian romance novel at its heart, but it’s also adventurous and exciting, well-researched and well-written. The two protagonists, Katja and Frederica, are Germans who meet as part of a film-making project, fall in love, and work underground for the Resistance throughout the years of World War II.
The beginning of the novel centers on the film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, and she’s a recurring character. She’s handled with a certain ambiguity – brilliant but morally blind. Ambiguity is a theme of the book, which is one of the things that makes it interesting. Nobody gets through a situation like this with all their scruples intact.
The novel focuses on a little band of film-makers who all go in their separate directions, and are sucked into the excesses of the Hitler regime. Two gay men, Rudi and Peter, are among the first to be persecuted, and they both help the Resistance at times, and are instruments of the German state at other times.
We see many historical characters, but mostly from a distance. However, Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, shows up more prominently, since Frederica gets a job as his secretary. As the novel begins, it’s clear to Katja that Frederica is Goebbels’ mistress, and so she puts aside her attraction for her, and marries the nice German soldier that she’s been engaged to for a while. But the attraction doesn’t go away, and over time, she discovers Frederica’s true role as a conduit of information to the British.
With the noise and danger of war as a constant backdrop, the love affair between the two still feels authentic and unforced. Katja, more headstrong and less controlled, is interred in Ravensbruck for a while, after she verbally defends someone seen as an enemy of the state. She is rescued only when Leni Riefenstahl uses her influence with Hitler.
The beginning of the novel centers on the film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, and she’s a recurring character. She’s handled with a certain ambiguity – brilliant but morally blind. Ambiguity is a theme of the book, which is one of the things that makes it interesting. Nobody gets through a situation like this with all their scruples intact.
The novel focuses on a little band of film-makers who all go in their separate directions, and are sucked into the excesses of the Hitler regime. Two gay men, Rudi and Peter, are among the first to be persecuted, and they both help the Resistance at times, and are instruments of the German state at other times.
We see many historical characters, but mostly from a distance. However, Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, shows up more prominently, since Frederica gets a job as his secretary. As the novel begins, it’s clear to Katja that Frederica is Goebbels’ mistress, and so she puts aside her attraction for her, and marries the nice German soldier that she’s been engaged to for a while. But the attraction doesn’t go away, and over time, she discovers Frederica’s true role as a conduit of information to the British.
With the noise and danger of war as a constant backdrop, the love affair between the two still feels authentic and unforced. Katja, more headstrong and less controlled, is interred in Ravensbruck for a while, after she verbally defends someone seen as an enemy of the state. She is rescued only when Leni Riefenstahl uses her influence with Hitler.
October 27, 2018
Quite good
The author is correct. Very few people interested in history is indifferent to Leni Riefenstahl. Although she was not a member of the Nazi party she was certainly a big fan of Hitler. I find her denials after the war to be as hollow as most Germans. This book was good. Strong story and a rather surprise ending. Very few authors take on the Holocaust, very, very few. I do recommend this book and others by this author. However if the reader wants a sunny feel good book like so very many that litter this genre perhaps they should look elsewhere.
The author is correct. Very few people interested in history is indifferent to Leni Riefenstahl. Although she was not a member of the Nazi party she was certainly a big fan of Hitler. I find her denials after the war to be as hollow as most Germans. This book was good. Strong story and a rather surprise ending. Very few authors take on the Holocaust, very, very few. I do recommend this book and others by this author. However if the reader wants a sunny feel good book like so very many that litter this genre perhaps they should look elsewhere.
February 19, 2018
I loved this book. Excellent. Bravo!!!
December 12, 2024
An excellent exercise in "Tell don't show" and the power of ironic juxtaposition. I realize that I have very specific tastes, and that most books don't appeal to me (but I read them anyway), hoping for at least a literary experience I might enjoy. As happens a little too often for me with books of this quality, everything is a little too convenient, the coincidences that move the plot along are not very convincing, and I'm left rolling my eyes more than enjoying the story. That said, I'm not a fan of the high-action drama anyway, so that may say more about me than the book. But when the author literally points out the ironic juxtaposition as it happens, or the metaphorical significance of of a scene, I'm left wondering if the author has any faith in her audience's ability to reason for themselves.
That's the bad. The good is the characters. The characters are completely believable, complex, fully developed, fleshed-out characters. I completely understand the mental space of each one of the characters, why they make the decisions they make, how they feel about them, and can imagine completely convincing and realistic scenarios for their future. Even minor characters and fleshed out. As far as character development is concerned, it's easily a 5 ⭐️ book. (Unfortunately, the story and writing are really lacking, so it averages down to a 2.)
That's the bad. The good is the characters. The characters are completely believable, complex, fully developed, fleshed-out characters. I completely understand the mental space of each one of the characters, why they make the decisions they make, how they feel about them, and can imagine completely convincing and realistic scenarios for their future. Even minor characters and fleshed out. As far as character development is concerned, it's easily a 5 ⭐️ book. (Unfortunately, the story and writing are really lacking, so it averages down to a 2.)
December 10, 2016
This was a lot better than I thought it would be. As in, not quite literature, but pretty good. I was concerned at first when I realized the main character worked for Leni Riefenstahl - I wondered if I was going to be expected to sympathize with someone who supported the Nazis, or excuse her for not thinking that much about the political consequences of her work. But Katja quickly does come to question the Nazis, and it was interesting to read the perspective of Germans who were unhappy with what their government was doing. It didn't quite have the sense of urgency or terror that I would expect was all around at that time, but it did share a lot of the details of ways life could be awful for all sorts of people.
September 19, 2012
Wonderful!
October 26, 2015
2012 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention (5* from at least 1 judge)
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