Sonderbooks Book Review of The Ash Garden

****The Ash Garden*

by Dennis Bock

Reviewed September 23, 2001.
2001.

At the beginning of this book, I was impressed with its power and very absorbed in its stories. The author takes the stories of three people and brings them together. One is a girl who, at six years old, became a victim of the bomb at Hiroshima. Another is a scientist responsible for creating the bomb, and the third is his wife, who is a refugee from Austria. The author skilfully weaves their stories, dipping back and forth between the years of WWII and the present.

Yes, the book is sobering. I feel I have a much clearer picture of the horror of Hiroshima now. I’m not sure I wanted that picture, but it was presented in a human, compassionate way. The whole novel was written beautifully and expertly. My only quibble is that I didn’t feel fully satisfied at the end, didn’t really feel a full sense of completion. However, it was an excellently written, thought-provoking book.

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Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

***The Ash Garden

by Dennis Bock

****The Ash Garden*