Edge of Eternity

Starred review from June 23, 2014
In the ambitious, commanding capstone to his multigenerational Century Trilogy (after Winter of the World), Follett expertly chronicles the pivotal events of the closing decades of the 20th century through the eyes of a vast array of deftly-drawn characters, all suffering the slings and arrows of a world marred by war and global unrest. Among them is Rebecca Hoffman, a good-natured school teacher in Communist Berlin, who discovers in 1961 that her secretive husband, Hans, is a clandestine Stasi agent and has been spying on her for years. When she eventually confronts him, he angrily vows to destroy her family. Elsewhere, mixed-race, civil-rights-minded George Jakes forsakes a lucrative law career to work for Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department, then battles racial inequality as a congressman. Dmitri “Dimka” Dvorkin, an aide to Nikita Khrushchev, finds himself embroiled in heated U.S.-Soviet nuclear political power plays and his sister, Tanya, thrusts herself into the fray of governmental global turmoil. Cameron Dewar, a senator’s grandson, also becomes politically active with espionage on his mind while Rebecca’s brother, the musician Walli, must choose between a rising-star career in rock-and-roll and his pregnant lover, Karolin. Sweeping through the Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan administrations, Follett’s smooth page-turner concludes in 2008 with an epilogue set on the night of President Obama’s electoral victory. This mesmerizing final installment is an exhaustive but rewarding reading experience dense in thematic heft, yet flowing with spicy, expertly paced melodrama, character-rich exploits, familial histrionics, and international intrigue.

September 1, 2014
Another sprawling, multigenerational, continent-spanning saga from long-practiced pop-fiction writer Follett (Winter of the World, 2012, etc.). One might forgive the reader for taking Follett's title literally at first glance; after all, who has time for the eternity of a 1,100-plus-page novel, especially one that's preceded by a brace of similarly hefty novels? Happily, Follett, while not delivering the edge-of-the-seat tautness of Eye of the Needle (1978), knows how to turn in a robust yarn without too much slack, even in a book as long as this. The latest and last installment in the Century Trilogy spills over into our own time, closing with Barack Obama's electrifying speech in Chicago on winning his first term as president-an emotional moment, considering the struggle some of Follett's protagonists have endured to see it happen. His Freedom Riders make plenty of history of their own, risking violence not just for stirring up the disenfranchised, but also for engaging in more personal forms of protest. One, George Jakes, comes near the top of Follett's dauntingly long dramatis personae (in which more than 100 named characters figure); he's a crusader for justice and often in fraught places at the times in which he's most needed. George has his generational counterparts behind the Iron Curtain, some of them pretty good guys despite their Comintern credentials, along with a guitar-slinger from East Germany swept into the toppermost of the poppermost in the decadent West. ("They quickly realized that San Francisco was the coolest city of them all. It was full of young people in radically stylish clothes.") Follett writes of those young hipsters with a fustiness befitting Michener, and indeed there's a Michenerian-epic feeling to the whole enterprise, as if The Drifters had gotten mashed up with John le Carre and Pierre Salinger; it's George Burns in Pepperland stuff. Still, fans of Follett won't mind, and, knowing all the tricks, he does a good job of tying disparate storylines together in the end. A well-written entertainment, best suited to those who measure their novels in reams instead of signatures.

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June 1, 2014
Those eagerly awaiting volume three of Follett's ambitious Century Trilogy will not be disappointed. Despite the long waitWinter of the World was published in 2012both the history propelling the multiple plots and the third generation of the interrelated cast of characters are so familiar, readers should have no trouble picking up the threads of the story line left dangling at the end of the previous installment. Spanning the globe and the latter third of twentieth century, this saga continues to follow the lives and loves of the members of five global families, as they struggle against a backdrop of tumultuous international events. As the years roll by, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall, the assassination of JFK, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the crumbling of communism are intimately viewed through the eyes and emotions of a representative array of witnesses to history. Follett does an outstanding job of interweaving and personalizing complicated narratives set on a multicultural stage. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Follett needs no hard sell. The previous two installments of the ambitious Century Trilogy were best-sellers; expect no less from this superb concluding chapter.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

Starred review from June 15, 2014

The final volume in Follett's latest trilogy (after Fall of Giants and Winter of the World) is worth the wait. The formula is the same as in previous books: the continuing history of five families, now conflated into four--British, American, German, Russian--traced against the background of dramatic public events. The second book ended in 1948 with the Rosenberg spy trial, and now Follett starts in 1961, when Rebecca Hoffman learns an unpleasant truth about her East German husband. George Jakes, the biracial son of a white senator from the previous volume, is hired by the White House as window dressing--the Kennedys mustn't look like bigots--but soon becomes a trusted aide to Bobby Kennedy. Thus he witnesses what goes on in the Kennedy White House and in the civil rights campaign. German families are separated for decades by the Berlin Wall. Two grandchildren--German and English--form a successful rock band, our entree to the everything-goes 1960s. Follett covers all the bases in this sprawling, energetic novel. Bad things abound, but, the tone is upbeat. The book ends with the televising of Obama's 2008 election speech. Watching with his family, George has tears in his eyes for the fallen martyrs who made the event possible. VERDICT Once again, Follett has written pitch-perfect popular fiction that readers will devour. [See Prepub Alert, 3/24/14.]--David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2014

The final volume in Follett's latest trilogy (after Fall of Giants and Winter of the World) is worth the wait. The formula is the same as in previous books: the continuing history of five families, now conflated into four--British, American, German, Russian--traced against the background of dramatic public events. The second book ended in 1948 with the Rosenberg spy trial, and now Follett starts in 1961, when Rebecca Hoffman learns an unpleasant truth about her East German husband. George Jakes, the biracial son of a white senator from the previous volume, is hired by the White House as window dressing--the Kennedys mustn't look like bigots--but soon becomes a trusted aide to Bobby Kennedy. Thus he witnesses what goes on in the Kennedy White House and in the civil rights campaign. German families are separated for decades by the Berlin Wall. Two grandchildren--German and English--form a successful rock band, our entree to the everything-goes 1960s. Follett covers all the bases in this sprawling, energetic novel. Bad things abound, but, the tone is upbeat. The book ends with the televising of Obama's 2008 election speech. Watching with his family, George has tears in his eyes for the fallen martyrs who made the event possible. VERDICT Once again, Follett has written pitch-perfect popular fiction that readers will devour. [See Prepub Alert, 3/24/14.]--David Keymer, Modesto, CA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.