Editorial Review
An American army doctor, Major Grayson Pierce, finds a little boy hiding in a stench-filled barrack at the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945. A devout Catholic, Pierce realizes that God is allowing him to save one precious life among the ubiquitous piles of naked corpses in this notorious Nazi slave labor camp. After the war, the doctor, a widower, brings Joe to his home in Ithaca, New York, and becomes his guardian. At the Pierce mansion, Joe struggles with his nightmares of Buchenwald and with three old women who see him as an intrusion – Grayson’s "fire-breathing" mother, Nina Cassandra, his "drill sergeant" older sister, Mildred, and a benign but indifferent Aunt Elvie. Making things worse is Grayson's eight-year-old insolent daughter, Irene, who refuses to accept Joe as her new "brother."
Grayson nearly comes to blows with his mother and sister when he chooses to rear his ward as a Jew while they insist that the boy must be converted to Catholicism. To escape the family "pressure cooker," Grayson and Joe take a two-week excursion around New York State. Joe learns English and bonds with his guardian in trust and love. Back at the mansion, he is better prepared to deal with the old women, but the bitter fight over his soul continues for the next several months, coming to an acrimonious conclusion at Christmastime.
The Guardian's Son is a story of how the devastating memories of Buchenwald affect a young boy and his guardian, and how religious intolerance, hypocrisy, and racism poison a deeply religious family. In the end, hatred, bigotry, and anti-Semitism are overcome in Christian values of benevolence, kindness, charity, and compassion in this powerful story.
At the end of WWII, the 6th armored division of the American army rolls into the wasteland of Buchenwald, along with the 76th armored medical battalion of doctors to assess and care for the prisoners who survived the horrors of the Shoah. When Grayson Pierce discovers a young boy hiding in a dirt pit beneath the germ-infested beds in one of the buildings of the concentration camp, after already finding the boy’s father lying dead near the electrified fences, he hears his calling in becoming the boy’s savior and guardian. But the trip back home to New York, and bringing the boy into a world of Catholic devotees, is more than he bargained for. Joe, the Jewish boy, suffers from horrible nightmares, extreme post-traumatic stress disorder including bed-wetting, hoarding food in his closet, and an overwhelming sense of distrust of every new person he meets.
The women in Grayson’s life – his mother, sister, aunt, and daughter – all have their own agenda in regards to this little boy, and all having to do with their own selfish disregard and prejudices based on their Catholic upbringing and ideals. This little boy goes from one extreme to the other, and both housed in outright racial injustice. As a Jew, he feels worthless. Already having to feel ashamed of his heritage in the hell of Buchenwald, these supposed “Christian” women display another type of inhumanity. The grandmother, staunchly set in her ways, demands the boy be converted from Judaism if he is to live in her house; the sister, with her dead fish eyes, pushes her own will upon the boy, even doing things in secret behind Grayson’s back, to assure the boy’s conversion; the aunt, whose inaction at a moment when the grandmother takes matters into her own hands exudes indifference; and Irene, Grayson’s daughter, displays the spoiled attitude of a girl unaffected by the harsh realities of the German war. Actually, all of the women appear cushioned within their formidable ‘castle’, and quite unwilling to understand the trauma this little boy has gone through at the hands of the Reichmonster.
But Grayson, Joe’s savior, is the epitome of Christian kindness, even with his own trauma of seeing the horrors of the concentration camp and his human failings of not knowing exactly how to deal with PTSD. He is determined to allow Joe to know his Jewish heritage and practise his religion. Grayson rises above the mire of bigotry and hypocrisy, taking Joe on a journey of self-discovery and love, and helps him to find a measure of peace in this brand new world devoid of his parents, of any other blood relative, or any semblance of the life he knew before the war. Grayson’s patience helps Joe to blossom, and soon he discovers the brilliant mind behind the sad eyes. The boy is a genius, learning English with incredible speed, and a hunger for knowledge and books.
And yet, after this enlightening trip of guardian and son, reality settles back when they both must face the ‘dragon ladies’ back home, all coming to a head during the holidays from Thanksgiving to Christmas.
This is a truly heartbreaking book, and Ms Tiemeyer does an exquisite job of weaving a story that pulls on every heart string in your body. More than once I was in tears. So often, I wanted to take Joe into my own arms and rock him to sleep – and for a book, for words, to cause that kind of reaction is simply phenomenal. Incredibly believable, as if you are reading a true-life story, and the saddest part is that this probably is reality for many of the orphans who lost their entire families during the Holocaust. As heart-wrenching as this book is to read, I feel strongly that it needs to be made into a movie – the story of the children of the Shoah, and the realities that prejudice and injustice continued to shadow over many of their lives even after the war... even to today. Grayson and Joe’s story is one of incredible sacrifice and ultimate love, true qualities of a professed Christian.
As the quote from the novel states: “But Grayson wouldn’t accept any of these reasons. After being driven out of the Garden of Eden, God gave man free will. And with that came culpability of the worst disaster of the twentieth century. The choice to do good or harm lay at man’s feet.”
Each character, so artfully fleshed out, had a choice to do good or harm to this innocent little boy, who already suffered from Hitler’s choice of free will. As you read the story, you cannot help but turn inward into your own heart and question the choices you make in your own life in dealing with others. The Guardian’s Son is a beautiful book of morality, and the full disclosure of the inhumanity of man.
Five stars from The Historical Fiction Company – Highly Recommended!!
Author Bio:
Anita Tiemeyer was born and raised in Columbus, Indiana. She graduated with honors in music education and history from Western Illinois University in 1980. She was a member of the 539th Air Force Band stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, from 1983-1991. She performed on oboe and alto saxophone in several groups, touring the southwest United States. She was awarded her master's of music degree from Butler University in 1995, and she was a free-lance musician in Central Indiana for many years. She has maintained a private music lesson studio for over thirty-five years.
Being a storyteller since childhood, Anita started putting her creative work to paper in 1999. Her original book, The Guardian's Son, follows the life of Joe Kaufmann, a child survivor from the Buchenwald concentration camp. As the book was originally over 900 pages, she has split it into six novels, which can be read individually or as a series. Her first published novel, A Brother for Sorrows, is book four. Readers will be drawn into Joe's mental and emotional struggles as he tries to come to terms with his memories of the concentration camp experience that plague him for his entire life. There is a wealth of diverse, complex characters, plot twists, and expansive, descriptive settings. Because of her love of history, Anita has thoroughly researched these books for historical accuracy.
Anita has also written several short stories. These are parables with a moral lesson. The characters are faced to make choices when confronted with greed, deception, and lies that put their livelihoods on the line. They are challenged to make difficult decisions that test their honesty, compassion, and integrity.
Anita resides in Indianapolis. Beside her passion for writing and music, she maintains several vigorous gardens and enjoys movies, reading, baking, and hiking.
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Book Blurb:
An American army doctor, Major Grayson Pierce, finds a little boy hiding in a stench-filled barrack at the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945. A devout Catholic, Pierce realizes that God is allowing him to save one precious life among the ubiquitous piles of naked corpses in this notorious Nazi slave labor camp. After the war, the doctor, a widower, brings Joe to him home in Ithaca, New York, and becomes his guardian. At the Pierce mansion, Joe struggles with his nightmares of Buchenwald and with three old women who see him as an intrusion--Grayson's "fire-breathing" mother, Nina Cassandra, his "drill sergeant" older sister, Mildred, and a benign but indifferent Aunt Elvie. Making things worse is Grayson's eight-year-old insolent daughter, Irene, who refuses to accept Joe as her new "brother."
Grayson nearly comes to blows with his mother and sister when he chooses to rear his ward as a Jew while they insist that the boy must be converted to Catholicism. To escape the family "pressure cooker," Grayson and Joe take a two-week excursion around New York State. Joe learns English and bonds with his guardian in trust and love. Back at the mansion, he is better prepared to deal with the old women, but the bitter fight over his soul continues for the next several months, coming to an acrimonious conclusion at Christmastime.
The Guardian's Son is a story of how the devastating memories of Buchenwald affect a young boy and his guardian, and how religious intolerance, hypocrisy, and racism poison a deeply religious family. In the end, hatred, bigotry, and anti-Semitism are overcome in Christian values of benevolence, kindness, charity, and compassion in this powerful story.
Book Buy Links:
Amazon Universal Link: https://amzn.to/3zc38y1
AWARD WINNER!!
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