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Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Finished: Edge of Eternity (Follett) Another great story, the third book in Follett's Centuries trilogy which follows the families of four different countries: The U.S., Germany, Russia and Great Britain. The main characters are the children of the main characters we got to know in the second book, and the grandchildren of the people we grew to love in the first book! The families: the Dewars, the Jakes, the Williams, the Murrays, the Francks, the Peshkovs and the Dvorkins. The book is far too long to recap in great detail, but it runs from 1961 to 1989. We follow the characters through major points in history, as each of them is involved in some way in these pieces of history, kind of the way Forrest Gump was inadvertently involved in so many pieces of history in the movie. We see the establishment of the Berlin Wall, the Civil Rights Movement in the deep south, the rise of Martin Luther King, the presidency of JFK, the terror and uncertainty of the Bay of Pigs, the assassination of JFK, then Bobby Kennedy, then Martin Luther King, Watergate, the Vietnam War, the rising up and subsequent crushing of the Solidarity movement by Lech Walesa in Poland, and the Russian leadership of Khrushchev, then Brezhnev, then Andropov, and finally Gorbachev, who helped to undermine the cold war and led to the breaking down of the Berlin Wall. George Jakes, the half-African American grandson of Russian immigrant to the U.S., Lev Peshkov, becomes a Harvard educated lawyer and resounding fighter for civil rights, and also one of Bobby Kennedy's top advisers. He has two major relationships with strong women and in the end, finds his own happiness. He's a good man! Cameron and Beep Dewar, the grandchildren of American Gus Dewar, go in totally different directions. Beep embraces the free love of the 60's, falling for both main members of an up and coming rock group. Cam becomes an avid Republican, working for Richard Nixon and continuing on with Reagan, eventually working for the CIA to carry out whatever questionable instructions his superiors want. The British Dave and Evie Williams are also a brother and sister duo, grandchildren of Eth Leckwith, the maid turned British parliament woman who we came to love in the first book. Dave becomes the first member of that up and coming rock group, Plum Nellie, despite his father's insistence that he'll never make it as a musician instead of finishing school. Dave falls in love with Beep Dewar, and she with him, until she cheats on fiance Dave with the other main member of the band, and Dave's best friend. Evie becomes a famous actress whose talent enchants the multitudes, until she protests the Vietnam War by posing with North Vietnamese soldiers on a tank in North Vietnam. Jane Fonda anyone? She is eventually forgiven and makes her comeback on Broadway. Jasper Murray, who was basically adopted by the Williams family growing up, turns into a reporter with few scruples who even uses stories about the people who took him in to make his way up the ladder and eventually be there to cover first hand such stories as the assassination of MLK and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Walli and Lili Franck are the children of Carla Franck, the daughter of beloved character from the first book, Maud von Ulrich. They have an adopted sister, Rebecca, who Carla adopted as a teenager in the second book when her parents were killed in the war. The story for all three of these siblings centers around the erection of the Berlin wall, Rebecca's and Walli's escape to West Berlin, the decades long separation of their family, and their eventual reunion with the fall of the wall in 1989. Walli becomes that second member of Plum Nellie! He's a great songwriter and musician, and he and Dave become best friends. However, Walli leaves behind the love of his life, Karolin, when he escapes to West Germany. She refuses to cross over with him when she realizes she is pregnant with his child. She doesn't want to endanger the baby, so little Alice is born in East Germany and isn't reunited with her father for over 20 years. Meanwhile, Walli gets into drugs in the Haight-Ashbury music and free love scene. He sleeps with Beep, and ruins his relationship with both Dave and the band. The band breaks up and Dave sends Walli back to his sister, Rebecca, in West Germany to kick his drug habit. Eventually, Walli has that happy ending when he's reunited with Karolin and also meets his daughter for the first time. The Russian Tanya and Dimka Dvorkin are twin brother and sister who are the grandchildren of the great Grigori Peshkov (brother or Lev) who we got to know in the first book. Again, we have a brother sister duo who are at opposites in their beliefs, but never waver in their love and support of each other. Dimka is a true believer in communism and works for years in the government until he finally becomes disillusioned by the various leaders until Gorbechev comes along. He falls in love twice and ends up happy with his second wife and two children. Tanya works tirelessly behind the scenes in Russia as a TASS news reporter/secret revolutionary who covers such world events as the Bay of Pigs and the Polish solidarity movement for Russia, all the while sending intelligence back to the revolutionaries to try and abolish communism. She falls early on for a dissident named Vasili, who is sentenced to labor camp in Siberia for distributing a mere pamphlet about freedom. Tanya eventually finds Vasili while on assignment in Siberia, and she manages to smuggle his novel out of Russia and into the hands of British publisher Anna Murray, sister of Jasper. So, for years these writings come out of Russia to the frustration of the Russian government. Eventually Vasili is released from Siberia, with some influence by Dimka, but Tanya and Vasili are still stuck living in Russia, unable to leave, and with Vasili still unable to claim authorship of his books. The book ends with the breaking down of the Berlin Wall and with the Franck family finally reuniting after so many years of separation. Amazingly, none of the major characters die and most all of them end up happy with children! I'm kind of wondering if there will be another book (even those this was labeled a trilogy) to follow up what continues to happen in these fascinating families! :-) Now, for a shorter book.....

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