Dear Professor Izzo
I wanted to drop you a line and say how much I like A Change of Heart, which I'm teaching at Harvard as part of my Junior Tutorial in the History and Literature department.
I often teach and write about historical fiction and so was keen to read the novel - especially to see how it manages the combination of historical research with fictional writing,
and by a scholar of the period (I'd argue t hat apart from A Change of Heart, only Richard Slotkin's Abe has done this well in recent years). As a scholar of the period myself I was
bowled over by how historically accurate the book is - it's scrupulously accurate. But as a literary critic as well (the balancing act of being a scholar in History and Literature!),
I was thrilled to also be impressed by the dazzling prose - I was entertained and moved, and found that the rich historical details didn't bog down a brilliant read. The novel is the
ultimate harmony of disciplines - and as History and Literature, and American Studies, continue to grow as fields and undergraduate concentrations, it stands as an important example.
By the end of the novel I felt closer to Auden, Spender, Huxley and Isherwood than I have ever felt - a strange thing, especially coming from a Brit-in-America! They came alive, as did
their work, and I began to read their writing in a new way - suddenly able to employ a new historical empathy. In fact, I also use the book when lecturing about this hot topic of "historical empathy."
Zoe Trodd
Harvard University, Committee on Degrees in History & Literature
Whether
you are an adept of Aldous Huxley, W. H. Auden, Christopher
Isherwood, or any of the artistic figures of the 1930s,
you will be enlightened and entertained by David Garrett
Izzo's remarkable A Change of Heart. His recreations are
so astonishingly alive and accurate that you feel you are
there at the creation, a sudden intimate of a brilliant
and select group of artists and writers. Auden and Spender
and others parry and debate, live and breathe again; the
past recaptured! Izzo knows the period so deeply and has
such powers of synthesis that even someone like myself who
has been reading Auden for forty years will find fresh factsand
will see material already known anew. Stunning, dense, just,
and, in the largest and best sense, true."
Roger Lathbury: George Mason University
“David Garrett Izzo breathes new life into some of the great
literary figures of the twentieth century. Historically
accurate, fresh with energy, true to character (no easy
feat), his prose offers rich new moments with Aldous Huxley,
Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, and others of their
constellation. Izzo creates a wonderfully voyeuristic atmosphere."
Dana Sawyer: author of Aldous Huxley, a Biography
“A Change
of Heart is a detailed portrait of a now mythical time,
England and Germany in the 1930s, as told through the lives
of real and fictional characters. Here are the young Christopher
Isherwood, Wystan Auden and Stephen Spender, as well as
the celebrated Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence. David Garrett
Izzo draws on his vast knowledge of the times, the people,
and their work to create a novel reminiscent of Huxley’s
Point Counterpoint and Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin yet
all his own. Izzo recreates the lives and loves of young
and established writers and artists, along with their artistic,
philosophic and political battles.”
James J. Berg: editor, The Isherwood Century and Conversations
with Christopher Isherwood
“Though daunting at the outset, Izzo's scholarship and wealth
of information about the real lives of his central characters
soon becomes the novel's strength. The richness of fact
and detail--especially about the principles' psychological
motivation, including, of course, for most of them their
homosexuality--bring to life these figures of literature
and literary stature. And in so doing give a deeper layer
of meaning to their literature.”
Toby Johnson: LAMBDA winner 2001 for Gay Spirituality
A fictional
account of the life of early 20th Century English Author
Aldous Huxley.
Expertly written. Describes in detail Huxley’s literary
contempories. Does a good job at covering European political
intrigue of the 1930s; the struggles between the “isms”
- fascism, Marxism, and democratism. Effectively outlines
upper-crest British opinion of the coming war – mainly
isolationist, during Hitler’s rise to power.
Independent Publishing Review |
