THE KINDLY ONES

Whenever a book is released that fictionalizes the Holocaust, the question arises: Why? However, when a novel like Jonathan Littell's THE KINDLY ONES is released, it’s easy to understand why. Littell's novel about a fictional Nazi officer and his life during and after WWII is a compelling and, at times, tedious work. Grover Gardner's narration is magnificent—he gives a performance as stunning as the writing. The content is frequently gruesome, especially in some of the earlier scenes, and it takes a special reader like Gardner to transcend any repulsion while conveying the brutality of the plot and its characters. Although the answer to the question "why" is clear, with a work of more than 39 hours, at times the listener still must wonder: Why so long? D.J.S. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2009]