Stefan Hertmans's novel is a tender account of a 20th century life touched by ghastly inhumanity and, ultimately, unceasing grief. The writer's grandfather is the subject, and the tale is told through scraps of memories and, most directly, a diary. An exemplary soldier in Belgium in the Great War, Urbain Martien endures and describes the horrors of that conflict in the novel's central section. The bookending sections tell of his childhood and postwar life, which were colored by his own father's work as a church painter restoring the images of saints. The result is a family saga that is compellingly told, with layers peeled off and secrets effectively withheld until the very end.
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