With characters depicted in precise detail and wide panorama—a kept-woman’s parlor, a contentious interracial baseball game on the Fourth of July, and the tragic true events of the Omaha Race Riot of 1919—Kings of Broken Things reveals the folly of human nature in an era of astonishing ambition.During the waning days of World War I, three lost souls find themselves adrift in Omaha, Nebraska, at a … in Omaha, Nebraska, at a time of unprecedented nationalism, xenophobia, and political corruption. Adolescent European refugee Karel Miihlstein’s life is transformed after neighborhood boys discover his prodigious natural talent for baseball. Jake Strauss, a young man with a violent past and desperate for a second chance, is drawn into a criminal underworld. Evie Chambers, a kept woman, is trying to make ends meet and looking every which way to escape her cheerless existence.
As wounded soldiers return from the front and black migrant workers move north in search of economic opportunity, the immigrant wards of Omaha become a tinderbox of racial resentment stoked by unscrupulous politicians. Punctuated by an unspeakable act of mob violence, the fates of Karel, Jake, and Evie will become inexorably entangled with the schemes of a ruthless political boss whose will to power knows no bounds.
Written in the tradition of Don DeLillo and Colum McCann, with a great debt to Ralph Ellison, Theodore Wheeler’s debut novel Kings of Broken Things is a panoramic view of a city on the brink of implosion during the course of this summer of strife.
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This book is a remarkable telling of the race riots in 1918 Omaha, Nebraska, but reads more like an action-packed fiction novel. The characters are lively and flawed, descriptions of their lifestyles are raw and realistic, and the compelling facts of the politics and moralistic mood of Omaha makes the events—even the squalor—come alive on the page. Using the Great War and the influenza pandemic as a backdrop, the author, paints an authentic picture of life in 1918. At this time in our history, with Prohibition and the Great Depression on the horizon, jobs are scarce, women are not safe on the streets alone, and African-Americans are still the closest target for hatred and violence.
By following the trials of Karel Miihlstein—a teenager and immigrant from Germany, Jake Strauss—a young man on the run from Jackson County, Evie Chambers—a woman of questionable morals and ethnic background, and Tom Dennison—a ruthless crime boss that runs the town, a stunning portrayal of rural America is explored. I was fascinated to learn that school and health authorities removed children suffering from rickets and malnutrition from their homes and placed them in sanitariums where they were not only healed but educated—bravo. I was also dismayed to find that politics in the eighteen century were perhaps more corrupt than they are today. This one is very informative and a great read.
In picking my Kindle First book this month, I didn’t pick Kings of Broken Things so much for an expectation of a great book as I had no desire to read any of the other books. Frankly, I haven’t had a great deal of success when picking my Kindle First books, but I am glad I picked Kings of Broken Things.
I love reading and I love history so I should love historical novels. Unfortunately, many are not well written. Characters not fully developed, historical flavor adding little to what I am already aware of. This book does a great job of painting a complete picture of the main characters. Where they came from, their fears and desires, all of which helped in understanding the decisions they made both good and bad.
All had a common struggle – trying to find their place in a brutal, hostile world. Outsiders trying to be accepted in the face of a fear of those who were different – immigrants, African-Americans and women who wanted to something more than just a housewife.
The author paints a detailed, picture of Omaha during this troubled, turbulent times all leading up to an explosion of the underlying racial and nationalistic tensions that culminated in the tragic riot and hanging of an innocent black man. The people’s fears stoked and manipulated by a desperate, power hungry head of the political machine.
Nobody is all good or all bad. But, instead, a complicated mix of both. Victims, survivors and casualties the times they lived in.
My only real complaint (a minor one at that) is that based on the description of the book, I was under the impression that the story would be centered around baseball. While one of the main characters, Karel, an immigrant child fell in love with baseball and his talent for the game became his way out of Omaha, it was a minor part of the overall story.