Description:
Nanking by Kevin A. Kent
Review written by New York Times best-selling author Ellen Tanner Marsh
All too often in the literary world, the horrors of war are made even more grotesque by bad writing about war, from poorly plotted action-adventure tales to cloying melodramas. In contrast, author Kevin A. Kent’s WWII epic, Nanking, is a highly-informed, crisply written novel that, though set in a period of intense conflict, does not rely upon the setting alone to drive the tautly-paced narrative.
Nanking is the story of the eponymous city in China that was the target of invading Japanese forces in the late 1930s. More than a historic account of a siege, it is the wrenching drama of the everyday heroes—mostly foreign—who stayed through the city’s occupation in order to help save its beleaguered residents.
Kent’s heroine is diminutive Minnie Vautrin, an idealistic American missionary who chooses to remain in the doomed city to safeguard the students of the all-girls school she administers. Yet this is no overblown melodrama; Minnie’s journey is tragic, and Kent knows better than to romanticize even the most inconsequential detail. Yes, the reality is stark, but the tone is never maudlin, while Kent’s carefully executed series of flashbacks, along with deliberate and tautly stylized pacing, allow readers to empathize with the characters and the situation—one that, thankfully, falls outside the bounds of common experience.
Nanking is vivid and cinematic, a tale that is evocative of a place and time that, played out on so many ferocious fronts, forever changed the world. Readers will no doubt look forward to future works by this author—although writing a novel as compelling as Nanking would be a feat, indeed.
www.nankingthebook.com
Review written by New York Times best-selling author Ellen Tanner Marsh
All too often in the literary world, the horrors of war are made even more grotesque by bad writing about war, from poorly plotted action-adventure tales to cloying melodramas. In contrast, author Kevin A. Kent’s WWII epic, Nanking, is a highly-informed, crisply written novel that, though set in a period of intense conflict, does not rely upon the setting alone to drive the tautly-paced narrative.
Nanking is the story of the eponymous city in China that was the target of invading Japanese forces in the late 1930s. More than a historic account of a siege, it is the wrenching drama of the everyday heroes—mostly foreign—who stayed through the city’s occupation in order to help save its beleaguered residents.
Kent’s heroine is diminutive Minnie Vautrin, an idealistic American missionary who chooses to remain in the doomed city to safeguard the students of the all-girls school she administers. Yet this is no overblown melodrama; Minnie’s journey is tragic, and Kent knows better than to romanticize even the most inconsequential detail. Yes, the reality is stark, but the tone is never maudlin, while Kent’s carefully executed series of flashbacks, along with deliberate and tautly stylized pacing, allow readers to empathize with the characters and the situation—one that, thankfully, falls outside the bounds of common experience.
Nanking is vivid and cinematic, a tale that is evocative of a place and time that, played out on so many ferocious fronts, forever changed the world. Readers will no doubt look forward to future works by this author—although writing a novel as compelling as Nanking would be a feat, indeed.
www.nankingthebook.com