Dennis Bock

An alternative history, describing what would happen if the fascists really won WW2. Set in Canada, written in multiple time periods, this story had me enthralled by page five and wouldn’t let me go.

The other reviews on this page tell more about the plot and talk about the revisionist historical nature of it, about the dreadful outcomes that can result even when we think we are doing good. This is all true, and so well-described and written the book is worth a read just for these.

(I truly show more love a book where the author knows exactly how much description and backstory is needed- not a word is extra here and every one is perfect)

But I encourage people to read this as a cautionary tale as fascism rears its head again, as hatred against one group or another is being fanned into heat by politicians and media. We are but steps away from the reality of crazed mobs burning down buildings again. The situation described in this book could easily become reality. It just takes one misguided person, perhaps, to tilt fate…

A sobering read, but despite this, somehow filled with hope. I must read more by this author! show less

I'm surprised that I haven't read anything by Dennis Bock before because his book The Communist's Daughter is one that I have wanted to read for some time. However, I don't remember hearing anything about this book.

I thought it was quite brilliant. In this interview in Quill and Quire Bock tells about the trials of writing The Ash Garden. He made several false starts before coming up with this story of a scientist who participated in developing the atomic bomb, a woman who was a young girl show more in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped and the wife of the scientist who suffers from lupus all her life. Anton Boll was born in Germany and worked in Hitler's research into atomic energy until he fell out with one of the other scientists. He then defected to the US where he was involved in the Manhattan Project. While travelling in Quebec he met Sophie, a young Austrian woman who managed to escape Europe on a ship that was bound for Cuba. They weren't allowed to land in Cuba so she spent some time in an internment camp in Scotland before coming to an internment camp in Canada. On the ship in the Havana harbour Sophie had her first experience with lupus although it was some years before she was diagnosed. Emiko was playing with her younger brother by the river when the atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. Both her parents were killed but her grandfather, a doctor, survived (I would have liked to have known why he was not killed or injured by the bomb, something that is never explained in the book). Her younger brother survived for some weeks after the bomb blast but died one night in hospital in the bed next to Emiko.

Fifty years later, Emiko approaches Anton at a rally and asks him for an interview for a film she is making. At first Anton refuses but then he contacts her and asks her to come to his home in Ontario for the interview. Anton and Sophie had left New York City some years earlier to settle into a house by Lake Ontario where Sophie could garden to her heart's content in the years left to her. Emiko comes, planning on only staying one night but after her first interview with Anton she realizes there is more to explore. Anton had taken movies when he spent time in Hiroshima just after the bomb was dropped and Emiko can not resist seeing this film.

The three central characters are so complex I cannot possibly do justice to them in this review. Physical scarring and psychological scarring play a big part. For a book written by a man the women characters are exceptionally well rendered. Bock apparently did not travel to Japan but he read many accounts and he seems to have the voice of Emiko perfect. As to Sophie, I couldn't find any information about how he could write so convincingly of a woman with lupus but I suspect he must be well acquainted with someone who suffers from that disease.

The garden Sophie creates is obviously meant to contrast with the ash garden that was created in Hiroshima by the bomb. And it is not just any ordinary garden. Sophie fills it with topiary structures so that Anton is surprised at what he finds as he strolls through it. Even as she gets sicker she thinks about her garden and gives Anton directions about what needs doing.

Anton is cast as the saviour for both women but perhaps he saved them from something that they would rather have experienced. Sophie is never able to return to Europe to find out what happened to her family. Emiko is brought to the US for plastic surgery and has to stay there while her grandfather dies in Japan. Anton seems to have left behind his family without any qualms so he probably finds it hard to understand what Sophie and Emiko feel.

Many, many layers here. This will be a book I think about for quite a while. show less

i finished this book last night and have spent all day today trying to figure out what to say about it. bock's writing is so lovely - it's truly elegant and beautiful. and he handles some heavy issues of morality very well, reflecting the complicated nature of being human in an often inhumane world. given the chaos and life-changing nature of the events bock takes on, the restraint is impressive. bock is quite subtle in his examinations, and he levels no judgments or opinions in presenting show more his characters and their actions.

in the back of the edition of my book is a wonderful interview with bock. in it, he is asked about the appeal of moral complexity as a writer. his response:

" As a reader I've always been drawn to "Big Question" books that might introduce certain questions to the reader's mind but do not claim to provide answers to those questions. I love a good mystery, but not in the conventional sense of that word: the mystery of right behaviour, moral choice, responsible action. I'm put off by novels that pretend to answer the questions they raise. There can't be answers - not sincere or meaningful answers - to the questions of moral action raised in a great book. A serious writer, in my mind, attempts to expose the flip side to any commonly held belief. It's a shell game of sorts, with each shell containing, or seemingly so, the seed of truth. Point to it with anything resembling conviction or certainty and you will be proven wrong. That being said, a novel isn't a game. It doesn't try to cause the reader to stumble, but in resisting an easy answer regarding a character's choices the reader might find himself in the confusing position of simultaneously loving and hating a character, his choices, his beliefs. For me a novel is at its best when it brings contradiction to the surface of a character's life and when those contradictions and confusions are highlighted by virtue of a dramatic conflict between characters. In exposing those contradictions by the right positioning of character, setting and drama, you approach the heart of what it is to be human. There is, in this world, instead of the simple black and white universe of poorly imagined fiction, and infinite variety of greys."

i loved this! and i do feel bock succeeds really well in writing about the moral complexity of both anton böll and emiko. and sophie too.

but there is something that is tripping me up, something that felt a bit flat which i can't quite put my finger on.

the novel started out very strongly for me and i was completely captivated by emiko's story line. anton böll was an equally interesting character -- a scientist who escaped germany in order to secure better work in his field, ending up an integral player on the manhattan project. sophie is the third character - a hungarian-german escapee. the story of these three non-combatants moves from character to character, back and forth in time, from the day the bomb was dropped on hiroshima, to a time nearly 50 years later. all three lives are connected and fundamentally changed by war, and by each other.

there is also the aspect of illness handled in the novel. i will hide this bit because the nature of the illness, though presented early on, is a bit of a slow reveal. sophie - wife of anton böll lives with lupus. it was mostly handled well by bock, so i suspect this disease is something he has familiarity with in his own life. i have lupus so encountering the issue in fiction is interesting to me, and not something that happens a lot. i feel a bit stuck on the way sophie's lupus was portrayed, even though i felt it was mostly okay. my 'yeah but...' moments: 1. her diagnosis happened very quickly which would be unusual for the time (1940s). 2. it felt like this portrayal of lupus is to represent lupus completely, which would not be accurate. bock presents one form of lupus only, and maybe even mislabels it - i have to reread this one bit. he spells out the SLE diagnosis. in fact, much more time is spent addressing sophie's discoid lupus or CLE or DLE. i do believe that these forms make one more susceptible to SLE... and sophie, who dealt with only skin issues for many years, (she had the malar rash only once, and then had the plaques/lesions and scarring on her body) did develop serious kidney involvement. but i feel like this was a confusion in the plot. though it may very well make no matter to another reader unfamiliar with lupus. and it may very well be an accurate portrayal when the diagnosis was given to sophie in the 1940s. we have come a long way in the field since then. so i am also prepared to be outright wrong on this point. so i can't quite decide if i am being too picky over a fictionalization, or if it's reasonable to want more clarity/accuracy where this plot point is concerned?

overall the ash garden is a moving and sensitive portrayal of three lives forever changed by one catastrophic day. i feel as though aspects of the novel are going to sit with me for a good long time, carrying more weight than my quibbles. show less

A Japanese woman, scarred by the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, wants to interview one of the scientists responsible for the bomb's development and who had been part of a US team going there to study the effects a few weeks later. Anton Boll slowly decides to share more of his memories. We learn more of the backstories in separate retrospective chapters. Emiko seems to have come to more acceptance than Anton, and made something out of her life.
Interesting, but I should have written this review show more last month when more of the book was fresh in mind.
Heard as an audiobook; my review would likely differ if I had read it. show less