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Summary
Summary
Pol Pot was the Khmer Rouge leader whose reign of terror caused the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians in the mid-1970s. He masterminded an extreme, Maoist-inspired revolution in which those Cambodians died in mass executions, and from starvation and disease. This book of historical fiction shows the life of one refugee from this reign of genocide. Veteran journalist Gordon Beld, winner of the Exodus prize, skillfully weaves factual news accounts (the real story) into the book in an anecdotal fashion, and this makes even more evocative the events he fictionalizes. The author continues his work with refugees in Michigan.
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
Alexander, the pen name of a husband-and-wife team, one of whom is an emergency-room physician, delivers Sacred Trust, a first novel about a young emergency-room physician, Lukas Bower, practicing in a small town in southern Missouri. Bower, a Christian, tolerates no compromise in the ethical practice of medicine: not from an older, respected doctor who makes a minor mistake; not from the drug-seeking son of a board member; and not from a child abuser, also a powerful man in the community. Although Alexander's doctor is heroic, he's human. He's shy around women, untactful, and naive. This is a tough-minded and convincing novel, free of soap opera. Among other things, Beld's quaintly titled A Gentle Breeze is about the inadequately appreciated role of churches in resettling Cambodian refugees in the late 1970s, when the Khmer Rouge spread its reign of terror. Beld alternates the story of a liberal Christian couple who gradually become involved with refugees with the composite stories of a number of them. Notably, there's Ang Lee, a young woman brutalized in a Khmer Rouge camp who finally escapes to Thailand and then to the U.S. by agreeing to marry a family friend. Beld's book is strangely organized--it's fiction but contains news summaries, an interview with the author, and chapter notes--but it's upbeat, moving, and even rather poetic. Foster's Passing by Samaria is a rarity in Christian fiction: it features an African American heroine in a kind of female Black Boy. As blacks die in France in World War I, a Mississippi high-school girl, Alena, discovers a schoolmate's lynched body, suspects that the white sheriff is involved, and cannot silence her outrage. For her own protection, her parents send her to live with an aunt in Chicago. This "promised land" is perilous, but Alena dabbles in journalism and finds a good man to marry. The impending marriage brings her home to Mississippi, and simultaneously the white sheriff is himself killed in a "hunting accident." In a beautiful, deeply religious series of scenes featuring aggrieved blacks, the sheriff's family, and a young white minister, atonement and forgiveness are achieved, and there is hope for racial harmony. This is a fine first novel and most welcome. Huffey's The Hallelujah Side is a subtle literary novel featuring Assembly of God Pastor Winston Fish's family of Ames, Iowa, from the point of view of his younger daughter, Roxanne. Roxanne's older sister, Colleen, shows signs of leaving the faith; the family moves to Pasadena; and Roxanne achieves salvation with some help from Aretha Franklin. That's the entire story, but Huffey is extremely funny, much like Marilynne Robinson in Housekeeping in her mad, circular dialogues and deft characterizations. The Reverend Fish, for instance, attempts to refute Das Kapital line by line with Scripture. All the Fishes feel pursued by demons and suspect that the Second Coming will occur by noon. A quirky, slight, and, by turns, hilarious and poignant first novel. Jenkins' Though None Go with Me, first in the Three Rivers Legacy series, will draw interest because Jenkins, with Tim Lahaye, is author of the Left Behind series, a cult hit about the Antichrist and Judgment Day. This is the much more sedate story of Elizabeth LeRoy, a woman who dedicates her life to the service of God and allows nothing, not even romance, to sway her. In Jenkins' hands, her tale is lively enough, though it will prove too preachy for some, and, at the least, it's a far cry from the apocalypse of the Left Behind series. There's plenty of apocalypse in Marzulli's Nephilim, featuring his ingenious explanation of the infamous UFO sighting--and alleged suppression of the story by the air force--in Roswell, New Mexico. Art Mackenzie, a newspaper reporter who's been boozing ever since the death of his son, and whose father disappeared at Roswell, stumbles onto a secret ward of a Southern California hospital where mental patients speak of aliens, giants, UFOs, etc. Mackenzie is off to Israel and Peru to solve the mystery, and, yes, it turns out that aliens are among us. They are the Nephilim, an ancient, mysterious race described in Genesis, on Earth again prefiguring the Second Coming. Clever and compulsively readable. Spangler's She Who Laughs, Lasts! brings together 73 short shorts and vignettes by women on subjects such as married life, mothers, Christmas, raising kids, and growing old. It's a collection looking for an Irma Bombeck; unfortunately, none of the writers is really very funny, but all offer wholesome, upbeat wisdom, much like that of Kay Allenbaugh's Chocolate for a Woman's Soul (1997). For ministers, there are some anecdotes and clean jokes here that could round out a sermon. Turner's By the Light of a Thousand Stars is the sturdy, small-town tale of catty Catherine Biddle, the middle-aged matron of a proper-seeming middle-class family riven with purposelessness and emotional fatigue. When a new family moves in across the street who are disorderly and unconventional but full of love for one another and God, Catherine learns again the lesson of her youth: love and a generous spirit are the only means to happiness. Series updates: From Zondervan, Vanished (paper, $12.99, 0-310-22003-3), second in the J. D. Stanton series of supernatural mysteries by Alton Gansky; Fields of Gold (paper, $9.99, 0-310-22369-5), the second in Lisa Samson's historical romance series, Shades of Eternity; and Words of Honor (paper, $10.99, 0-310-21759-8), third in the popular Terri Blackstock's Deep South mystery series, Newpointe 911. From WaterBrook: Angela Elwell Hunt finishes her Heirs of Cahira O'Connor series with The Emerald Isle (paper, $11.95, 0-310-21759-8). From Bethany: Kathy Tyers' science-fiction novel Fusion Fire (paper, $10.99, 0-7642-2215-5), sequel to Firebird (paper, $8.99, 0-7642-2214-7); and Michael Phillips' Heathersleigh Homecoming ($17.99, 0-7642-2237-6, or paper, $12.99, 0-7642-2045-4), third in his Secrets of Heathersleigh Hall series.
Library Journal Review
Living with her extended family in her grandparents' home in Phnom Penh, Savang Kim Ang epitomizes the traditional Cambodian daughter: loving, obedient, and hard-working. After the war raging in her country tears her family apart and she endures years of horror, she ends up in Mendon, IN, in the home of Ken and Donna MacKenzie, a college professor at a Methodist college and his devout wife. Ken's apathy toward the church disappears as he becomes involved in the project to relocate refugees to America, and Kim's arrival opens his heart. Beld's provocative look at the devastation caused by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot in the 1970s is interwoven with factual accounts and a discussion list for reader's groups. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Prologue: A Break in the Clouds | p. 1 |
Part I Two Different Worlds | |
Putting First Things First | p. 11 |
More Than Meets the Eye | p. 21 |
A Change in Direction | p. 26 |
Spur of the Moment Decisions | p. 32 |
Delight and Despair | p. 39 |
Peace at Last | p. 47 |
No More Tears | p. 57 |
God's in His Heaven | p. 64 |
Another Day in Hell | p. 71 |
Let it Snow | p. 81 |
Liberty or Death | p. 91 |
Storm after the Calm | p. 100 |
Exodus | p. 108 |
Decision Time Again | p. 115 |
Clinging to Hope | p. 124 |
Thankfulness and Anticipation | p. 134 |
A Proposal, of Sorts | p. 140 |
Angels at Millbrook | p. 148 |
Sweet Sorrow | p. 156 |
Part II We Meet, and the Angels Sing | |
Coming Together | p. 166 |
A Quick Divorce | p. 177 |
Merry Christmas | p. 189 |
A Busy New Year | p. 202 |
Ups and Downs | p. 210 |
Yellow Roses and Other Blessings | p. 219 |
Wings of the Wind | p. 230 |
Another Exodus | p. 237 |
Two Summers | p. 245 |
Fulfillment | p. 257 |
Afterword | p. 269 |
Appendix Characters | p. 273 |
Glossary | p. 277 |
Reader's Guide | p. 281 |