SPOTLIGHT ON FICTION 2006
35 HOT DEBUTS

AN AUTHOR DELIVERS A FIRST NOVEL ONLY ONCE of course, and with that book launches a career. Maybe that’s the reason, along with the consistent craving for things new, that so many readers have such optimistic curiosity about fiction debuts: Here’s a voice you haven’t ever heard, telling a story you likely haven’t heard (at least, not quite this way) from a source who—if all goes well—will be able to tell you more stories for years, decades, to come. Those factors certainly figure in our enthusiasm for this particular Kirkus Special, which is itself a debut. While Kirkus Reviews has been reviewing first fiction for nearly three-quarters of a century, the magazine has never before culled, from among a season’s most promising debuts, a group to highlight. The 35 titles selected demonstrate individually and collectively the undiminished power of fiction and storytelling; show off the fruits of the labors of dozens of talented writers, editors and agents; and suggest that these 35 voices will be welcome additions to the lives of readers well into the future.

-The Editors

Linda Press Wulf starts The Night of the Burning, her haunting work of historical fiction, based on the experiences of her mother-in-law, with an ominous note: “I knew I would never laugh again,” says Devorah, a child who has just lost her parents to illness and her Polish shtetl to rampaging Polish villagers spurred on by Cossacks. Then comes an angel of mercy, a South African philanthropist who arrives in Poland to gather 200 Jewish orphans.

Told in alternating, before-and-after chapters that pivot on the night of the burning - the pogrom that sets fire to her neighborhood and kills all but Devorah and her sister—Wulf skillfully transports readers between life in Devorah’s village before the pogrom, her days in orphanages and her reluctant life with her adoptive parents.

Devorah’s loss, confusion and acute pain are exquisitely drawn by Wulf. “She remains aloof as a matter of principle,” says Wulf, anxious to keep the memory of her parents alive.

The stories of Domachevo, Devorah’s home village, will not be forgotten, thanks to Wulf’s inspired telling. “The children I was writing about endured and emerged from terrible trauma,” she says. “I wondered how they could bear it, whether they comforted themselves with moments of happiness: a new friend, the antics of a small animal, the sun on one’s hair.” Devorah does, and in her recovery is the miracle of laughter amidst the ruins.

KIRKUS REVIEWS SPECIAL EDITION, May 1, 2006 “Spotlight on Fiction”
The Night of the Burning: Devorah’s Story
by Linda Press Wulf
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
www.kirkusreviews.com

The adults in the orphanage refer to Devorah as “the sad one” when they think she cannot hear, and sometimes when she can. She hasn’t smiled since she and her sister Nechama arrived in Pinsk, and little wonder. Both sisters have lived through a deadly pogrom in their small village as well as bearing witness to the death of their father, their mother, their uncle, and their aunt. As the elder of the two Devorah is still on the lookout for danger wherever the two go. Yet when a kind man by the name of Isaac Ochberg arrives to tell the children that he’s taking 200 Jewish orphans with him to South Africa, it is little Nechama who persuades her older sister to go. Once established Nechama is soon plucked up by a family that only wants one little girl. Devorah, for her part, ends with a kind couple who aren’t entirely certain how to care for this scarred, sometimes furious child. What Devorah must learn is to let go of the past but always remember where she came from. Once she is able to do that, she may even love her new family, in a way that still pays tribute to the past.

There are certain rules a person acquires over the years when determining whether or not a book is worth finishing. Here’s a new one I’ve just added: If the author can make you tear up by page 10, this is a book worth finishing. To be honest, I’m still shocked at how quickly Wulf is able to engage the reader. On page one you hardly know the characters and by ten you’re snuffling in your soup when Mr. Ochberg gently rocks Devorah and sings a lullaby as she cries for the first time since The Night. It’s nothing short of amazing.

Plus the character of Devorah was imbued to her bones with life. This was the kind of kid who was easily disturbed by stories, to say nothing of the horrors she’d eventually endure. You get a glimpse of her strength early on when we see her reworking the story of Jael in her head. In the original tale, Jael killed an enemy by knocking a tent peg through his head. Devorah is mildly obsessed with the logistics of this. “How did she hold the tend peg and swing the mallet hard at the same time? What would have happened if she hadn’t got the peg in all the way?” Eventually Devorah reworks Jael’s situation over and over until she decides that the man could have been trapped by a large metal half circle hammered into the ground around his neck. When Devorah senses an unpleasant problem, she does her best to correct it. Actually, all the characters in this book are rendered beautifully. Kindly Mrs. Kagan, who adopts Devorah but doesn’t understand how to communicate with her at the start, is described by the girl thusly: “I couldn’t decide about Mrs. Kagan yet. She was big and solid, and she moved like the three girls at my school who sometimes linked arms and plowed through the crowds on the playground chanting: `We. Walk. Straight. So. You’d-Better-Get-Out-of-the-Way’.” This is perhaps the best description of a person in a children’s book I have ever read. The best part is that we all know people like that.

Wulf is also adept at taking a small still moment between two people so as to imbue it with greater meaning. In a graveyard in her village, young Devorah officially vows to always remember her people’s stories. Says her Papa, “My heart is full of pride. But my head worries about you. Now that you have vowed, you must remember. But there are different ways of remembering, my child. Hard ways and easier ways. I hope you will find an easier way.” For those amongst you who are considering reading this book in a children’s book group, this is a good line to parse the meaning of. It’s such a pleasure to read a writer who knows how to slip small meaningful moments into ordinary situations. When Devorah hugs the other orphans because a once sick Mr. Ochberg is getting better, Wulf writes, “I can feel their hearts, I thought, I can feel each one’s heart.”

The authorial technique of flashing between the present and the past was a good move on Wulf’s part. Kids will appreciate the reassurance of knowing that Devorah and her sister both survive their village’s pogrom by seeing them safely ensconced in the orphanage at the beginning of the tale. By showing them moving to the safety of South Africa, the book is also able to pair a sad tale with a hopeful one, keeping the book from bogging down in misery right from the start. Too many children’s books crack the reader’s heart in half at the tale’s beginning and then expect that same readership to happily skip along to an unbelievable happy ending. And say what you will about “The Night of the Burning”, the ending we find on this story is wholly and utterly believable.

Ms. Wulf would be amiss in not mentioning the powerlessness of the indigenous black Africans, and she certainly brings them up once in a while. They do not become the focus of the book, though, so their story is sort of scuttled to the side. I felt conflicted about this choice. For example, almost at the end of the book Elizabeth, the servant of Mrs. Kagan, leaves for the weekend without saying goodbye to Devorah when her sister is visiting. Devorah wonders why Elizabeth didn’t say her farewells, but never really resolves the question. Are we to assume that Elizabeth knew the character of Devorah’s sister and responded accordingly? I wish more had been said on the topic. In a way, I hope that Ms. Wulf considers writing a sequel to “The Night of the Burning”, if only to resolve some of the issues she’s brought up with this book.

In any case, a strong book and a remarkable debut. Few if any American children are aware of the work of Isaac Ochberg, to say nothing of the politics of South Africa. “The Night of the Burning” closes another gap in their knowledge and offers a perspective I’ve not seen before. Linda Press Wulf has shown the world she has a particularly deft hand. Let’s hope she displays it again soon.

B Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved.

Losing their parents to influenza and typhoid fever, Devorah and Nehama endure another frightening and brutally senseless experience in their young lives when their simple early 20th-century Russian shtetl is attacked in an anti-Semitic pogrom. The orphans witness the gruesome stabbing death of their guardian, while everything burns to the ground. In the days following the violence, they are rescued by a British-based Jewish agency and begin a long trip to a strange new country: South Africa. Based on a true story, the fictionalized Devorah recounts her despair and hesitant hope fluctuating between divergent scenes. Her hardworking, happy village life—in spite of the everyday prejudices displayed by Christian neighbors—is described against her introduction to the wider industrialized world through her emigration and subsequent adoption. Making peace with the past is difficult, but accepting separation as a result of her sister’s joyful adoption by a wealthy couple adds yet another harsh dimension. Wulf creates an emotionally charged narrative that captures a sad, bittersweet, sometimes resentful and starkly realistic girl struggling to remember the past while forging ahead with an entirely altered future. Heartbreaking and poignant with a touching, positive conclusion. (Fiction 12-15)