How does an author of historical fiction do justice to a subject who must be considered one of the greatest writers of the 20^th century?  In his latest work, Colm Toibin, the author of THE MASTER, BROOKLYN, NORA WEBSTER and nine others takes on the challenge and has produced a work of biographical fiction centered on the life of Thomas Mann, THE MAGICIAN.  The book is a deep dive into the German Noble Prize winner’s life, highlighting his work, sexual proclivities, and the dysfunctional nature of the family with his fascinating wife Katia and his independent and unruly children.  The book reads like an actual biography, but without the narrow biographical strictures of more traditional works like Ronald Hayman’s THOMAS MANN: A BIOGRAPHY, Donald Prater’s, THOMAS MANN: A LIFE and Nigel Hamilton’s THE BROTHERS MANN.

Toibin’s effort is engrossing as he is able to apply a literary brush to a life that is not fiction and appears as a true biography.  Toibin’s imagination is combined with empirical research that allows him to capture the essence of Thomas Mann, his family, and the characters he dealt with during his lifetime.  Mann himself was a complex individual who hid his artistic and literary ambitions from his father and his homosexual feelings from everyone, though he would still marry and raise six children.

Mann, a 1901 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature had his family serve as a model in for his first novel, BUDDENBROOKS, Katia’s stay in a sanitorium is recounted in fiction for THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, and DEATH IN VENICE brought out his hidden homosexual fantasies among his works.  By 1933 he realized remaining in his beloved Munich was untenable; he and his family began a journey that would take them across Europe to France, Sweden, England, the United States, and finally to Switzerland.  THE MAGICIAN is an insightful novel that focuses on Mann and his family as they made there way through the World Wars, the rise of Nazi Germany, and the Cold War.

Toibin offers an intimate portrait of European society that is about to be destroyed by Hitlerite aggression. The norms and accepted principles that dominated northern Germany in the late 19^th and early 20^th century are on full display.  The Mann family life is recreated, and Toibin’s treatment of Thomas’ relationship with his older brother provides an important window into the dynamics of the family.  Throughout Toibin juxtaposes how the brothers react to each other citing their similarities, but more so their differences from their views of who should take over the family trading business, their attitude toward the rise of Adolph Hitler, and how they should navigate World War II and its aftermath.  A tender relationship is evident despite the harsh treatment they afford each other at times.

The Mann family dynamic forms a core of the novel.  The six children that Katia and Thomas produced are made up of strong personalities with disparate beliefs.  Klaus and Erika, who some thought had an incestuous relationship were anti-war radicals who opposed the rise of Hitler and pursued ideals that at times were an embarrassment to their staid father.  Elisabeth, the youngest who was the favored child took care of their parents until she shocked them by marrying the anti-fascist writer of literature, Giuseppe Antonio Borgese who was a little younger than her father, Galo, strong willed remained in Europe until the last minute, Monika whose boat was torpedoed by the Germans in 1940 as she tried to reach her family in the United States suffering the loss of her husband as she survived, and Michael the sensitive musician. 

The driving wedge within the family emerges with the rise of Nazism in the 1920s.  Klaus and Erika were adamantly public about their opposition to Hitler, but their father, typical of many Jews of his generation, was in denial.  Thomas Mann believed that the Hitler phenomena was temporary and German culture would override his popularity.  As time went on he began to realize the danger that Hitler represented but feared speaking out as it would endanger his German reading public, the safety of his brother Heinrich, Katia’s parents, his publisher, even after he himself became a refugee from Nazi Germany.  Toibin conveys Thomas Mann’s tortured emotions as he knew at least in his subconscious that Germany was lost to him, though for years he could not admit it.  He could not accept that once his books were banned in Germany the only access his readers would have was through translations – something he could not accept.

• THE (UNBELIEVABLE TALENT OF THE MANN FAMILYThe Manns: Dad was in chargeIn his new biography on the Mann family, Tilmann Lahme writes that Thomas Mann’s children never managed to free themselves from their father’s influence. The book begins in the 1920s, when all six of them have already been born. Pictured with him in 1924, from left to right: His wife Katia, with Monika, Michael, Elisabeth, Klaus and Erika Mann. Golo is missing in the photo.)

Mann’s same-gender attraction is treated honestly and with care.  There are many scenes that reflect Thomas’ desire, particularly when confronted with attractive young men.  The presentation is conveyed with taste even as Thomas fantasizes because of these encounters, though most were not carried to fruition.  Katia’s approach to their marriage and the needs of her husband are interesting and without her openness and sensitivity the marriage would never have lasted.  Mann wished to play the role of the bourgeois head of family in the context of his homoerotic fantasies which his wife accepted as long as her husband did not put their domestic life in jeopardy. 

Thomas Mann’s fears of the Nazis learning about his same-gender attraction is highlighted by his obsession with his diaries.  Though, his son Galo was able to send most of his books and papers to Sweden his diaries which included his fantasies and other thoughts about boys and young man were almost lost to the Nazis who would have liked nothing better to publish them and ruin him, particularly when he finally denounced the regime.  As Jay Parini writes in his September 19, 2021, New York Times book review the diaries reflected his dreams about mostly handsome young men. “His homoeroticism had many mansions, and he roamed their corridors in his dreams with impunity.”   Further, “Toibin delves into the layers of the great German novelist’s unconscious, inviting us to understand his fraught, monumental, complicated and productive life. It’s a work of huge imaginative sympathy.”

Toibin is at his best when describing some of the interesting characters that Mann dealt with during his lifetime.  The author resorts to an entertaining mocking style as he discusses Heinrich Mann’s wife Nelly who many labeled as a “floozy,” and Alma Mahler, the obstreperous wife of the late composer Gustav Mahler.  These are examples among many including other family members and associates of Thomas who become victims of Toibin’s sardonic pen.

Toibin expertly conveys the desperation of emigres trying to leave Europe for America to escape the rising tide of Nazism.  The gravity of the danger is fully explored, along with the bureaucratic roadblocks that people were forced to overcome.  Toibin focuses on his own family members which is a microcosm of the problem for hundreds of thousands feeing Hitler’s genocide.  Toibin’s analysis fits in with the current airing of Ken Burn’s latest documentary, an excellent piece of work entitled, US AND THE HOLOCAUST.

Toibin deftly navigates the origins of some of Mann’s most important novels.  BUDDENBROOKS  is a commentary of Jewish assimilation in Germany in the latter part of the 19^th century which draws on the family trading business and Thomas and Heinrich’s desire to have no part of it once their father dies.  DEATH IN VENICE is formulated based on a visit to Venice in 1911 where Mann encountered a beautiful Polish boy who becomes Tadzio in the novel. THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN is centers on a Swiss sanitorium where he takes the inconsequential actions of an x-Ray technician transfigured into art.

The novel conveys how politicians tried to manipulate and control Mann for their own devices as they implored him not to speak out against Nazi Germany before the United States could enter the war because of isolationist sentiment.  Later, he refused to go along with American diplomats who wanted him to refuse an invitation to speak at the 200^th anniversary of Goethe’s birth in East Germany.  When he refused to cooperate, he ruined his reputation in the United States, and this would foster his move from Los Angeles to Switzerland for his final years.

Overall, Lucy Hughes-Hallett is correct in her The Guardian review of September 17, 2021, as she states “The Magician is first and foremost a portrait of the artist as a family man; there is comparatively little in it about Mann’s development as a writer or about his status in the literary world. Rather, it places him at the centre of a panoramic vision of the early 20th-century German cultural scene….This is an enormously ambitious book, one in which the intimate and the momentous are exquisitely balanced. It is the story of a man who spent almost all of his adult life behind a desk or going for sedate little post-prandial walks with his wife. From this sedentary existence Tóibín has fashioned an epic.” 

Set in Portland, Oregon in 1975, Kent Anderson follows his first novel, SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL, with another exceptional work entitled NIGHT DOGS.  In his first book, a searing examination of the war in Vietnam, its effect on those who fought it, and the insanity of war Anderson focused on SGT Hanson an army enlistee after three years of college who volunteered for Special Forces, completed a tour of duty in Vietnam, and then reenlisted for another tour when he could not readapt to civilian life.  Hanson is a fascinating character as he became a hardened combat veteran while continuing to carry a book of Yeats’ poetry with him as he engaged the enemy.  In NIGHT DOGS we are reintroduced to Hanson who has traded his Bronze Star for a policeman’s badge.  Hanson still suffers from the demons of Vietnam as he patrols Portland’s meanest streets and is also confronted with enemies within the department who are bent on destroying him by digging into his war record and resurrecting the agonies associated with the events in southeast Asia. 

Robert J. Lifton, the author of HOME FROM THE WAR a study of the psychological impact on American soldiers in Vietnam written in 1973 was the motivating force behind the Veteran’s Administration’s decision to recognize PTSD as a clinical condition.  Lifton describes PTSD as a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event or events, particularly combat.  Anderson’s protagonist, SGT. Hanson is a textbook case and throughout the novel as he pursued the daily grind of policing in the poverty stricken violent ghetto of north Portland he provides evidence of the characteristics of PTSD especially flashbacks, interjecting his wartime experiences in daily conversations, nightmares, and recurrent conversations about the war with his elderly blind rescue dog, Truman who in a sense serves as Hanson’s “therapy” dog.

Anderson provides a glimpse into the nuances of a policeman’s day.  We ride along with Hanson and his partner Dana as they respond to calls over their radio in their assigned area dealing with car accidents, domestic violence, noise complaints, drug raids, shootings, robberies, welfare problems and a number of situations where they are the catalysts for their definition of crimes.  At the time the book was written in 1996 the issue of police brutality highlighted by the beating of Rodney King on April 29, 1992, was fresh in the mind of the author and if we fast forward to today; the Black Lives Matter movement,  George Floyd, and other police shootings of black men the book remains extremely relevant.

The Vietnam War is revisited through Hanson’s thoughts and commentary throughout the book.  As in his first novel, Anderson presents the hypocrisy of a senseless and dysfunctional war that was/is responsible for ruining the lives of countless soldiers through suicide, life long physical and mental injuries, and government policies that evolved decades later that some refer to as Vietnam Syndrome. 

Anderson explores police culture in fine detail as officers have to deal with urban decay and its attendant issues each day in Portland’s ever growing under world.  As in all police precincts officers are not always simpatico as is the case with narcotics Detective Fox and his partner, Detective Peety.  In Fox’s case it has become personal as he is obsessed in seeking revenge against Hanson for perceived lack of cooperation with narcotics cases and a general dislike.  Fox spends a great deal of time on and off duty going through Pentagon computers trying to dig up information concerning Hanson’s tours in Vietnam in order to destroy his career. The north Portland precinct that Hanson belong to has a reputation for being a landing spot for police officers and administrators who have “royally” screwed up and many of the characters Anderson introduces fit that pattern.

(Kent Anderson)

The only people that Hanson truly respects are his patrol car partners, Dana and Zurbo, but the only person he trusts is Doc Dawson, a black former member of his Special Forces team in Vietnam.  Doc’s helicopter is shot down and he winds up in a New Jersey VA hospital where certain racist nurses have it in for him and make his recovery miserable.  The end result, upon recovery he will return home and become a drug dealer and killer, and because of his VA treatment he walks with a limp and has a chip on his shoulder.  Hanson owes Doc his life because of an incident in the war and their friendship is rather unusual to say the least.

Anderson’s treatment of Hanson’s Special Forces training produces a number of scenes that are extremely disturbing, particularly how soldiers shot dogs, saved them while practicing medical training to be used in combat, and when the dogs recovered they are killed.  In many ways Hanson’s experiences as a policeman mirror what he endured in Vietnam.  In a sense the US military was seen as serving as an army of occupation in Vietnam.  On the domestic front, many people see the police serving the same function in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

During the summer of 1975, Hanson begins to unravel.  He is assigned a number of harrowing cases and colleagues die.  He will be targeted by O. Payette Simpson, a demented man who goes by the name Dakota who has targeted him.  Detective Fox’s research vendetta begins to haunt him.  His masochistic girlfriend, Sara, eggs him on to be more violent.  Finally, his loyalty to Doc threatens his professional loyalties as his drinking and cocaine use increase.

Hanson is a complex character and is accurately described by Michael Harris in the Los Angeles Times review “The Forces Battling for a Policeman’s Soul” from January 1997;” If Hanson were really a “monster” and a racist, he could rest content in his war-won certainties. But he can’t. The real reason he hates liberals is that he’s a little bit of a liberal himself. Though he doesn’t believe in love, he knows he needs it. Though civilization is wimpy and hypocritical, he dimly senses that it’s all we have. Though he treats some black offenders with gleeful brutality, he admits it’s not their fault that society has chosen to leave them in poverty, isolate them and suppress them by force rather than deal with their problems.”

Many novels have been written about the lives of policemen and soldiers, but few if any have delved into the propensity of the American people for violence as well as NIGHT DOGS.  Anderson’s work is well done, but it also presents a very important lesson which we should all digest.

(Police riot at 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago)

What does one look for in a first novel?  Perhaps an unusual beginning, then a scenario that immediately draws one in and makes you want to continue with great expectation as you are presented with a balance of sarcasm, humor, and seriousness.  These criteria are met in Nathan Hill’s thoughtful new novel THE NIX, which opens with an innovative approach by a woman who leaves her husband and son, followed by a scathing introduction to a Roy Moore type character, a former governor of Wyoming, whose evangelical conservative credentials are impeccable, one Sheldon Packer.  Packer seems to have been attacked in Grant Park in Chicago provoking a satirical YOU TUBE presentation as it shows a CNN type of approach to reporting about “Terror in Chicago.”

(Poet, Allen Ginsberg)

This is the tip of the iceberg for Hill as he develops a series of fascinating characters ranging from Hill’s main protagonists, Professor of Literature Samuel Andersen-Anderson who is abandoned by his mother Faye Andersen-Anderson at the age of eleven.  It seems that Faye is the one who attacked former Governor Packer with a handful of gravel and is painted as a 1968 hippie type of radical who was being charged as a terrorist under the aegis of the post 9/11 Patriot Act.  Other characters include, Faye’s father, Frank, an intolerant factory worker, Bethany and Bishop Fall, twins, one of which is a violin progeny, and a brother who is abused by his school headmaster and winds up fighting in Iraq.  Laura Pottsdam represents America’s quintessential college student enrolled in Samuel’s literature class, but has difficulty carrying out the most basic assignment without cheating, but once caught she sees her duty to destroy her literature professor’s career.  Mrs. Schwingke is a Home Economics teacher that offers an interesting perspective on the role of women, particularly in light of the recent sex scandals that have emerged nationwide.  Pwange, divorced and lonely, and one of Samuel’s gaming partners.  Charles Brown, an undercover cop during the Chicago riots that witnessed the Democratic National Convention in 1968 who later becomes an embittered judge confined to a wheel chair.  Alice, a woman who settled along the banks of Lake Michigan who was close with Faye during the summer of 1968, and of course the poet Allen Ginsburg of 0mmmm fame.  Hall of Famer, Ernie Banks, and the famous journalist, Walter Cronkite make their appearances as do many others.

(Chicago Mayor Richard Daley)

At times THE NIX reads like a John Irving novel with its irreverent approach to society, power, and politics.  Samuel Andersen-Anderson is very unhappy in his position at a university outside of Chicago.  It is here that Hill offers the first of a number of insightful views on America – academic life, administration of, and student participation in university life.  What we witness is the paper chase for tenure, administrators who bend to the will of students, who are not overly interested in education, but more of a free ride through the stepping stone to a successful career.  For Samuel, who had the potential of being a major literary figure earlier in his career, finds himself facing economic ruin if he does not deliver a manuscript that he has been paid for earlier.  The publisher, represented by his agent Guy Periwinkle, wants Samuel to write a book about his mother who in addition to attacking Governor Packer with gravel was supposedly a 60s radical who was arrested for prostitution.  The problem is that Samuel has not seen Faye for over twenty years and she refuses to cooperate with him to fill in the blanks in her life.

In addition to comments on academia Hill integrates views on the role of Hollywood memoirs, the publishing industry, Chicago traffic, high end suburban housing tracts with names like Venetian Hills, elementary school rules and regulations, life in a nursing home, the typical 1950s Home Economics education, life on convoy patrol in Iraq, and a wonderful critique of Disney world among other commentaries.  This approach apart from having a John Irving tinge, also has the feel of Kurt Vonnegut.

Hill offers a detailed description of Faye’s life and how it evolved, then turns to Samuel.  The pivoting point in their lives are clear, for Faye it is when she is eight years old and does not keep the secret of her father’s newly built bomb shelter from the neighbors.  For Samuel, it is when his mother, trapped in a conventional life that she never wanted, runs away from home, offering the advice that “the one you love the most is bound to cause you the worst pain.”  Samuel needs a crutch throughout his life and it becomes a “gaming habit” entitled, “Elfscape,” a vehicle to fill the time gaps in his life and maintain his anonymity at the same time.

Hill creates numerous witty scenes that are quite entertaining, but some of those scenes could be left out reducing the bulk of this rather lengthy novel.  As far as Hill’s grasp of the history of the period he is quite accurate.  His portrayal of the 1968 Democratic Convention and the violence caused by Mayor Daley and the Chicago police is accurate in the confines of blending the history of what actually transpired, and Hill’s artistic license.  To get a true sense of what really occurred see Lawrence O’Donnell’s recent book, PLAYING WITH FIRE: THE 1968 ELECTION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF POLITICS.*   Hill moves seamlessly between 1968 and 2011 throughout the novel even integrating the Occupy Wall Street movement, the lost idealism of “boomers,” and the emergence of millennials.  The multiple story lines are juggled nicely, and the author has the ability to write so effectively that there is not a boring scene or sentence in the entire book as he journeys back and forth from 1968 and 2011.

One of the more interesting analogies that Hill proposes resonates today.  During the summer of 1968 Hill argues that protesters and the police need each other equally.  Both groups need an enemy, someone to hate, so they can validate their own actions and beliefs and gain further support.  This is much like today’s politics. Trump and his supporters constantly point to their opponents as un-American and crooks, while Trump’s liberal opposition sees the president as mad, a threat to the constitution, and the implementing the deconstruction of the government.  Each side needs the other to validate their own beliefs and behaviors.  Only when this cycle is broken can the American people move forward.

The question must be asked is THE NIX presenting a tragic-comedy of American contradictions that fostered the election of Donald Trump?  I am afraid the answer is yes, and through Hill’s dialogue and characters we can gain insight into a president who emerged from a career in New York real estate that brought his emotional baggage and personality flaws to the White House.  THE NIX is a wonderful book, so sit back in a relaxing chair, with gentle music in the background, and enjoy the ride.

*Recently reviewed in http://www.docs-books.com

(Rioting outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago)