Whelp, here we are a year out from the original announcement.
No idea on what the book's cover is, nor has a more expository synopsis been made available. No response from the author that would indicate that there certainly wouldn't be any sympathy for the Nazi party. The book would also take place during Jim Crow era America, where some German POWs in America had access to facilities and recreational activities that were not allowed for the general black public, soldier or not. Not to mention the constant attempts made over the years to downplay the acts of brutality caused by the Wehrmacht by suggesting they were not a part of the Nazi party.
I'm going to go ahead and assume, based on the radio silence, they're heavily re-writing the novel to remove any previous indication of sympathizing with the Nazi Party or with the Nazi themselves.
I have an alternative recommendation, if you'd like the internet to not criticize you: stop writing about Nazi romances.
Stop trying to romanticize a period of time where millions died due to a holocaust caused by the Nazis. Where millions of people barely had rights while foreign Nazi prisoners were treated and paid better than them. The fact that this whole trope has been done to death before should be reason alone to stop romanticizing Nazis.
I'm not saying any of this was the author's intention, or that they're a Nazi, but what did they think the response would be? If the author closed their eyes and tried to visualize what their readers looked like...I wonder what it would be. I certainly hope it isn't a sea of blue-eyes and blonde hair. If it isn't, then maybe that should be the first indication that if you're going to write a novel taking place during WWII, the best idea would be to not make it a Nazi romance story while calling it a "little farm novel."
And yet, you’re still speculating. We have no idea what’s being done, what’s been done or whether this thing is any good. That’s the problem with attacking something before it exists.
If an author or a publisher can write about a novel before it’s published, then readers can also write about the same novel before it's published; based on what they already know. All of the criticisms of “Heartland” are based on what the author and publisher have revealed ahead of time; and on what history we as readers already know. That’s fair game.
“In any event, we know nothing about the POW, the circumstances of his capture, or whether he enlisted or was conscripted.”
“We don’t know if he willingly enlisted or was just following orders” might not be the defense you want to go with here.
“He might even have been a saboteur, taken prisoner before he would have brought down the Reich.”
If he’s a member of the White Rose or some deep cover saboteur (and that would be quite the twist) then the PM blurb about “questioning their complicity” doesn’t make sense. Also, unless the protagonist was organizing Bund rallies in her spare time, the use of the word “their” in this context is troubling. And if she was, I would again say that “the twist is that she’s evil too” isn’t going to make the people upset with this book think “Oh, why didn’t you say so?”
If the blurb is doing a poor job conveying the book, then someone should be speaking up: if not the author, then the agent and/or publisher. At this point, the silence speaks volumes.
Well, again, you're putting the author and publisher in the position of defending a book against critics who haven't read the book. Under the circumstances, their silence makes sense.
They made the blurb. The criticisms are of the blurb and what the blurb reveals about the book, be it published or not. We also kinda know what WWII was, who fought it, why they started it, and whom the Germans killed. That’s context enough. These criticisms are fair game.
If the critiques are way off, their silence makes no sense. It would be very easy to say “That interpretation of the book is flat out wrong, incorrect, etc. - hardly surprising considering these people haven’t even read it.”
OTOH, if the critiques have validity, staying silent makes a lot of sense: say nothing and hope everything dies down in the year before the book is actually released.
You're being very generous with the word "critique" here. The reading has either been done or has not. In this case, we know it has not been done. People are reacting, sometimes performatively, to a publication announcement. It's totally reasonable for the artists and their representatives to wait for their books to be published, or at least their galleys released, read and dealt with on their own terms, before wading into responses.
Interesting that you’re offended by people voicing their opinions on the premise of a book they’ve yet to read, but you’re quite comfortable characterizing the motives of those voicing those opinions as “performative”. Is the idea of so many people being offended by a potential Nazi rehabilitation tale really that hard for you to accept at face value? Based on your McSweeney’s piece I would have thought you’d have a little more empathy to those fearing rehabilitative reframing of past evils.
This is hardly a new theme. Somewhere someone's written a dissertation about all the variations on the theme of POW-local romances in World War II. And all the precursors to this plot. Undoubtedly, many people will object to anything written on this theme or not written, read or unread.
Indeed. Also, the works of fiction that depict nazis as having human psychology tend to be the scariest and most disturbing. I'm thinking Martin Amis here...
Whelp, here we are a year out from the original announcement.
No idea on what the book's cover is, nor has a more expository synopsis been made available. No response from the author that would indicate that there certainly wouldn't be any sympathy for the Nazi party. The book would also take place during Jim Crow era America, where some German POWs in America had access to facilities and recreational activities that were not allowed for the general black public, soldier or not. Not to mention the constant attempts made over the years to downplay the acts of brutality caused by the Wehrmacht by suggesting they were not a part of the Nazi party.
I'm going to go ahead and assume, based on the radio silence, they're heavily re-writing the novel to remove any previous indication of sympathizing with the Nazi Party or with the Nazi themselves.
I have an alternative recommendation, if you'd like the internet to not criticize you: stop writing about Nazi romances.
Stop trying to romanticize a period of time where millions died due to a holocaust caused by the Nazis. Where millions of people barely had rights while foreign Nazi prisoners were treated and paid better than them. The fact that this whole trope has been done to death before should be reason alone to stop romanticizing Nazis.
I'm not saying any of this was the author's intention, or that they're a Nazi, but what did they think the response would be? If the author closed their eyes and tried to visualize what their readers looked like...I wonder what it would be. I certainly hope it isn't a sea of blue-eyes and blonde hair. If it isn't, then maybe that should be the first indication that if you're going to write a novel taking place during WWII, the best idea would be to not make it a Nazi romance story while calling it a "little farm novel."
And yet, you’re still speculating. We have no idea what’s being done, what’s been done or whether this thing is any good. That’s the problem with attacking something before it exists.
If an author or a publisher can write about a novel before it’s published, then readers can also write about the same novel before it's published; based on what they already know. All of the criticisms of “Heartland” are based on what the author and publisher have revealed ahead of time; and on what history we as readers already know. That’s fair game.
The criticisms are based on wild extrapolations from what was released. Literary pre-crime.
“In any event, we know nothing about the POW, the circumstances of his capture, or whether he enlisted or was conscripted.”
“We don’t know if he willingly enlisted or was just following orders” might not be the defense you want to go with here.
“He might even have been a saboteur, taken prisoner before he would have brought down the Reich.”
If he’s a member of the White Rose or some deep cover saboteur (and that would be quite the twist) then the PM blurb about “questioning their complicity” doesn’t make sense. Also, unless the protagonist was organizing Bund rallies in her spare time, the use of the word “their” in this context is troubling. And if she was, I would again say that “the twist is that she’s evil too” isn’t going to make the people upset with this book think “Oh, why didn’t you say so?”
If the blurb is doing a poor job conveying the book, then someone should be speaking up: if not the author, then the agent and/or publisher. At this point, the silence speaks volumes.
Well, again, you're putting the author and publisher in the position of defending a book against critics who haven't read the book. Under the circumstances, their silence makes sense.
They made the blurb. The criticisms are of the blurb and what the blurb reveals about the book, be it published or not. We also kinda know what WWII was, who fought it, why they started it, and whom the Germans killed. That’s context enough. These criticisms are fair game.
Hopefully, we’ll see. If a book was killed because of all this pre-criticism, that’s a shame.
If the critiques are way off, their silence makes no sense. It would be very easy to say “That interpretation of the book is flat out wrong, incorrect, etc. - hardly surprising considering these people haven’t even read it.”
OTOH, if the critiques have validity, staying silent makes a lot of sense: say nothing and hope everything dies down in the year before the book is actually released.
You're being very generous with the word "critique" here. The reading has either been done or has not. In this case, we know it has not been done. People are reacting, sometimes performatively, to a publication announcement. It's totally reasonable for the artists and their representatives to wait for their books to be published, or at least their galleys released, read and dealt with on their own terms, before wading into responses.
Interesting that you’re offended by people voicing their opinions on the premise of a book they’ve yet to read, but you’re quite comfortable characterizing the motives of those voicing those opinions as “performative”. Is the idea of so many people being offended by a potential Nazi rehabilitation tale really that hard for you to accept at face value? Based on your McSweeney’s piece I would have thought you’d have a little more empathy to those fearing rehabilitative reframing of past evils.
This is hardly a new theme. Somewhere someone's written a dissertation about all the variations on the theme of POW-local romances in World War II. And all the precursors to this plot. Undoubtedly, many people will object to anything written on this theme or not written, read or unread.
Indeed. Also, the works of fiction that depict nazis as having human psychology tend to be the scariest and most disturbing. I'm thinking Martin Amis here...