A God in Ruins

7/10
Not the strongest Leon Uris book, but an interesting premise, a mix of cardboard and three-dimensional characters, and some excellent pacing and story-telling.

I was surprised at how prophetic this book was, having been published in 1999. The main character, a Marine through and through, finds himself and his squad on a "find and snatch" mission in Iran that is eerily similar to the 2011 mission to get Bin Laden. Then, there is the struggle against AMERIGUN (read NRA) organization and the attempt to pass meaningful legislation on gun control in this country. Go figure!

During a recent trip to the hospital, this book was handed to me to read and pass the time. A good opening had the potential to grab you. Leon Uris doesn't disappoint here. The shoo-in for the presidency in november's election, an orphan raised roman-catholic, finds one week before the election that his birth-parents, both deceased, are Jewish.

That could be a great premise but then what... The story falls apart. Uris tries to create tension in our two party system in the US with the histories of not only the RC/Jew protagonist, but his rival who is the president. If that had been handled better, perhaps this book would succeed, but Uris has chosen his battlegrounds poorly. Republicans do not do everything poorly in regards to the show more nation, but in God in Ruins Republicans always fail.

Democrats always succeed, and where we have some true named places and people, and ambiance, too much fictionalized that you have to read (AMERIGUN-is the NRA, Charlton Heston is their president so an Actor leads AMERIGUN...) throws the book into that thinly disguised type of clap trap.

The writing style of Uris also fails. People, all even the dumb ones, are too smart, for the use half sentences to talk to one another. Always full of depth of meaning. Our leaders maybe that smart, but I doubt it. Some of them are geniuses, some are charismatic dilettantes in reality, which Uris does not portray. All his politicians are brilliant.

So the story fails. It could have been good. It wasn't. show less

Couldn't quite finish it. Reads like an effort to be the Great American Novel.