A great story on the Vietnam War era.
By Emme on March 30, 2018 (Amazon Customer Review)
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase
I was too young to really understand what was happening in the '60s and Kip has certainly filled in many areas. Lots of historical detail. This book is for anyone who grew up during the Vietnam War era. Great book to read. I was sorry when the story ended.
Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite
A House Divided: A Saga of the Sixties by Kip Sieger is a family saga set against a strong political backdrop, with references to the war in Vietnam and anti-war demonstrations in the US. Meet Paul Milton, who would have been looking forward to a great summer vacation with the usual activities that lift his spirits, but the news on TV is depressing. His sister, Mary, comes home from college with her roommate, “her freewheeling friend trailing airily in her wake,” to attend the graduation of their brother, Chris. An event that should have been a great family get-together quickly turns into an unfortunate one that could tear the family apart when Chris expresses his desire to join a boot camp rather than going to college. Mary stands against everything that speaks of war, and her brother’s dreams of joining a boot camp couldn’t be more offensive. Follow this powerful conflict as a once united family faces the greatest challenge yet.
This is a work of great intelligence and imagination, a story that brilliantly captures the tumult of a historical moment while demonstrating deftly how the events of the war affected personal lives and families. Kip Sieger is a great storyteller and he knows how to keep readers engaged, thanks to his gift for character and plot. The characters are real and believable, each infused with a strong sense of humanity, and each facing a conflicting situation in life. They are conceived with solid backgrounds. The conflict is masterfully handled and this drives the plot. The pacing in A House Divided: A Saga of the Sixties is fast and the action is developed in a way that keeps the reader focused on reading on to see how the story ends. The first person narrative voice will keep readers utterly mesmerized and absorbed.
ByAlex on April 1, 2018 (Amazon Customer Review)
“A House Divided is dedicated to seekers young and old,
striving to learn from the past and make a better future.”
I think the dedication is telling. HD takes place during 1967-68, which was of course part of a very divisive era of social upheavals and a general questioning and challenging of social, political, and moral mores in the United States (and around the world). America’s internal and external conflicts directly affect the lives of each of the characters. More than that though, Paul’s family (our narrator) is a sort of microcosm for all these things.
Paul, thirteen when the book starts, navigating the ups and downs of adolescence, is too young to have staked out a position in the grown up world. But the events of the time and choices of his family members will, as the book unfolds, force our reflective but generally carefree kid to come to terms with it all as best he can. His older sister is a radical in college, no doubt a hippie from the perspective of most anyone in Paul’s middle-class Pittsburgh neighborhood; his older brother is a jock, captain of the football team, who’s graduating high school when the book starts and certainly doesn’t relate to his sister’s crowd or ideology. Paul, caught in a crossfire between the people he loves, is a witness to their divergent paths.
The plot all sounds straight forward enough, but HD is more than just a story. It’s a historical novel, it’s coming of age, and a poignant reflection (account) on what all these historical events, what the choices of those in power, meant for individuals’ lives – for Paul, his siblings, his parents, and his friends at school.
The book may seem long in pages, but it goes by fast. It doesn’t take long to get hooked. As someone born well after the 60s, I think what kept me so interested was to see what the events that I’d so often read or been taught about might have meant to real people living at the time, to see how the characters grew moment by moment as things actually took place, something the short time period of the novel affords it. I found myself wanting to understand the characters and considering my own life in light of theirs.
Though the events of an era may be seen as unique to it, the human challenges are always the same. I think HD achieves the goal of its dedication as it’s often in learning from relatable, individual lives that we are most effected to make changes in our own.
tl;dr: good book; four stars. Read if you want to experience 60s from a new perspective. But I want to emphasize, the book is not just about the 60s.
By Kathleen:
By Donna Diperri
A House Divided: A Saga of the Sixties really illuminates that period. From the eyes of the likeable characters you get a history lesson from the inside out. No spoiler here but definitely worth reading. Read this book for my book group and everyone enjoyed it.