Europe Central

Readers without a special love of the subject or of the author might not find Europe Central to their liking. Vollmann is one of America's finest living novelists of "big picture" issues, but this novel may not be the place to start, except for readers fascinated by twentieth-century totalitarianism. Others might prefer one of his other books as an introduction, perhaps The Ice-Shirt, or Thirteen Stories and Thirteen Epitaphs. Readers who stick with Europe Central will find a meditative, dense work allied with the human spirit against the crushing force of violent twentieth-century ideology.