The Wooden King
A Novel
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Czechoslovakia, 1939: Snow is falling over the city when the Nazis invade. Before the ice on the roads has a chance to melt, everything has changed for the country—and for Viktor Trn.
It isn’t obvious at first. The day-to-day realities of occupation take time to sink in. After losing his job as a history professor, Trn remains optimistic, preserving what little he can of his family’s dwindling freedom. In his family’s small apartment, the radio brings worsening news as Europe surrenders to Germany. Friends are arrested, men are hanged in the local school. Trn must protect his young son, but understands leaving their homeland could prove too dangerous.
Only when the air raids draw closer is Trn, a soft-spoken pacifist, pressured into making a choice: retreat to his decreasing sphere of familial safety, or join the resistance. Ultimately Trn finds himself caught between two titanic armies—the Nazis and the Soviets—and must decide how to save all that he loves.
In the spirit of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale and Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See, The Wooden King explores denial, desire, and family drama against the lyrically rendered backdrop of World War II, deftly navigating “the simple difference between what we do and what we ought to do” in the face of rising totalitarianism.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McConnell's debut novel (following the story collection A Picture Book of Hell and Other Landscapes) highlights the dramatic and complicated choices a Czechoslovakian man makes after the Germans invade Czechoslovakia during World War II. Viktor Trn is a former university professor living in a small apartment with his father-in-law, Miroslav; his wife, Alena; and their eight-year-old son, Aleks, trying to make ends meet despite the university closure and loss of his job. As the Germans take over, the family's relationships become even more strained. Victor suffers intense inner turmoil as he stays in an unhappy marriage to provide stability for his son yet engages in extramarital affairs and chooses not to openly oppose the German occupation due to his pacifist beliefs. Viktor seems to experience shame when his friend Pavel's wife accuses him of being responsible for Pavel's arrest and transport to Buchenwald, though he didn't inform on Pavel; upon Pavel's return home, he too chastises Viktor for his pacifism and not becoming involved in the resistance. Pavel's derision and increasing air strikes spur Viktor to abandon his passive and somewhat cowardly attitude and become part of the Czech resistance, enduring a grueling work detail as he prepares his family for the danger of the advancing Russian troops and the possibility of destruction in their wake. McConnell's first novel is imbued with rich historical detail, believably renders one man's struggle between pacifism and protecting his family.
