Book Review

Book Review
Evil: The Life and Times of Der Fuhrer
By Gregory Maguire
HarperCollins (422 pages)

When the Allies triumphed over the Nazis in the classic World War II saga, we heard only their side of the story. But what about their arch-nemesis, the mysterious Fuhrer? Where did he come from? How did he become so evil? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire, acclaimed author of Wicked, the fanciful retelling of the Wicked Witch and the Land of Oz, has triumphed again, creating a world so rich and vivid that forces us to rethink everything we thought we knew about at Nazi Germany.

Years before Eisenhower and his crew land at Normandy, Adolph is born -- a smart, sensitive and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil. The fourth of six children, only he and a younger sister, Paula, reach adulthood. The secrets of his life lie deep: Adolph’s father was the child of an illicit coupling, with his mother, Maria Schicklgruber, becoming mysteriously pregnant after working as a servant in a Jewish household in Graz. The shame of that is felt acutely by Adolph well into adulthood. The son seeks refuge in the arts, much against his father’s objections, and eventually rebels, leaving school at age 16.  Stung by rejections from art schools, he lives as a Bohemian, barely eking out a living painting even while producing more than 2,000 works. After the death of his mother, at just age 47, young Adolph falls into despair, running out of money and eventually winding up on the streets, homeless.

Adolph’s Germany is a cruel and unsettling place. The enemies of the Volk are everywhere. Young Adolph, wild and complex, is determined to protect the Aryans -- even it means combating the mysterious Jews, even if it means risking his single chance at romance. Even wiser in guilt and sorrow, he can find himself grateful when the world declares him a monster. And he can even make himself glad for that American general from Texas.

In Evil, Gregory Maguire has taken the largely unknown world of pre-War Germany and populated it with the power of his own imagination. Fast-paced, fantastically real and supremely entertaining, this is a novel of vision and re-vision. The Third Reich never will be the same again.