Product Description

An extraordinary epic of love, family, and war set in the Basque town of Guernica before, during, and after its destruction by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1935, Miguel Navarro finds himself in conflict with the Spanish Civil Guard and flees the Basque fishing village of Lekeitio to make a new start in Guernica, the centre of Basque culture and tradition. Once there, he finds more than just a new life – he finds someone to live for. Miren Ansotegui is the charismatic and graceful dancer he meets and the two discover a love they believe nothing can destroy . . .

Rich in the history of the region, the Red Baron, the Luftwaffe and even Picasso make appearances in Guernica as the fate of the Navarro family is traced through the early decades of the twentieth century.

'A heart-rending yet life-affirming story' Daily Mail

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1516 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback

Review
'love, loss, action, romance, drama and tradition in the face of adversity...you won't be able to put it down.'
--Woman's Own

'Where Picasso's painting so vividly captured the hellfire of the town's destruction, this book fills in the humanity. The characters, the culture and the landscape are all lovingly described.'
--New Statesman

About the Author

A Chicago native, Dave Boling has been a journalist in the Pacific Northwest since 1980. Prior to that, he worked as a logger, iron-worker, boat-builder, bartender, bouncer, short-order cook, painter and college football coach. He lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.

Customer Reviews

NO Captain Corelli this ...
I must admit I was seduced by the supposed comparison to Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the fact that this novel was about a most fascinating, albeit brutal part of Spain's recent history, the scars of which still remain. Unfortunately this novel I found lacking. The prose was plodding, the characters were two dimentional and the plot predictable - the great love would be won and then lost, the fruit of this great love would be found. Were it not for the title, and the odd Vascongado words and phrases chucked in, the action could have taken place anywhere and in any historical period. What was also disappointing was the section about the bombing of Gurenica itself. As a tragic climax it lacked emotion and any sense of drama. The inclusion of historical characters was supposed to add some sense of suspense and inevitability. It did not, the historical characters lacked presence and were not convincing. The tragedy of the Spanish Civil was sanitised, and political factions were either noble or evil. Although the possible future activities of such groups as ETA were hinted at they were at the same time romanticised. The book however, did serve its purpose - it shortened a rather tedious train journey.

Good but too flowery
Guernica is described as being 'compared to Captain Corelli's mandolin'. This is fair- Dave Bolling has produced a work so similar in style to Louis De Bernieres that its almost indistinguishable. For a first novel this is an impressive achievement but while matching the positive aspects of De Bernieres style he's also copied the negative.

Put bluntly 'Guernica' is just too romaticised. The Spanish civil war was one of the nastiest conflicts in European history, not so much for its total death toll but because it pitted neighbour against neighbour and imposed misery & grinding poverty upon much of Spain that lasted a generation. You simply don't get a sense of the suffering of living on rations just above starvation rate from this book. The Basque community (whom it seems are 100% united together against Franco and all are brave, kind and selfless) just tighten their belts and go fishing in streams. 'Winter in Madrid' by CJ Samson captured the misery of the Spanish civil war perfectly. Guernica doesn't.

The real historical characters weaved into the story such as Picasso and Von Richtofen are interesting, but not hugely convincing. All of them are rather like De Bernieres depiction of Mussolini in Captain Corelli. The climax of the book with the German bombing of Guernica is truly horrific and well written but its fairly obvious who is going to die in the raid which reduces the impact a little. A quote wrongly atributed to Stalin 'one death is a tragedy, a million merely a statistic' applies here and by widening the scope of the description of the bombing it reduces the impact that could have been gained from writing soley about one characters suffering.

This was a fine first novel and probably the equal of De Bernieres 'Birds without wings'. Sadly it doesn't come close to equalling real classics such as "Captain Corelli" or "birdsong"

Plodding Family Saga
Like a previous reviewer I began to find this book very heavy going indeed - it got to the stage where I was skimming over paragraphs of description to get back to the central family characters and the dialogue as well as the political upheaval of Spain in the 30's.

I think a previous knowledge of the Spanish Civil War would be of assistance to the reader and although the horrors of the bombing of the town of Guernica are graphically and shockingly portrayed, the reader must get two thirds of the way through the book before reading about them. Even after such vivid writing and the distressing fate of established characters, I still found myself skipping to the end of the book and glad to put it down.

Maybe a better read for a keen historian than a fan of 'family saga' books.