Once We Were Brothers

It's been a long time since a book kept me up so late past bedtime, to say nothing of waking well before the alarm (or the early summer dawn) to try to finish it before work. Once We Were Brothers did both. Written by Ronald Balson, Brothers is the story - part historical fiction (the early chapters, especially, recall In the Garden of Beasts) and part legal thriller - of a Holocaust survivor, Ben Solomon, intent on bringing a former Nazi, Otto Piatek, to justice. The twist is that the former Nazi was raised by the survivor's family, a non-Jew among Jews, until turning against the family during the war.

Balson's strength is the plot. Fast-paced and lively, the book moves. The student who recommended it to me promised me it was a quick read, and he wasn't kidding.The twists and turns come quickly on the heels of one another; hence, the reading-induced sleep deprivation. In addition to his plot, Balson's characters are a real strength. There are, essentially, few enough to count on a single hand (Ben, Otto, the accuser's attorney, Catherine, and the PI, Liam), with other more minor characters sprinkled liberally throughout both the past and present stories.

I did have a couple of (relatively minor) complaints. Many of the chapters rely too heavily on dialogue, as opposed to narrative, to move the story along. As a result, Ben is often delivering history lessons to his attorney, Catherine, who therefore comes off as a little thick. The background is probably necessary for most readers, but I would have preferred it to be woven into the narrative. By including it in the dialogue, Ben's speech often comes across as lecture-y. I also found Catherine to be the least sympathetic character. Her constant self-doubt is grating (honestly, if she has that low an opinion of her talents, she really shouldn't be in law), and I was no fan of the (somewhat contrived) romance between Catherine and Liam.

Given that this book was recommended to me while I was in Japan, I would be remiss not to add that perhaps the most interesting thing I learned was of the presence of Jews in Japan. Balson, through Ben Solomon, states that there have been Jews in Japan since the 1860s. My curiosity was piqued. It turns out Balson may have been selling the Japanese Jews short; according to Wikipedia (yes, I know, only the finest sources for my blog) Judaism has been practiced in Japan since the sixteenth century. Really. So maybe the Star of David I saw in Japan and automatically dismissed as being something else was actually a Star of David. Who knew?

An excellent airplane/beach/rainy weekend read. Starting in the middle of the work week was a mistake.

Four stars.