A ladder to the sky A novel

Review by New York Times Review

THE QUESTION WRITERS are asked most often is Where do you get your ideas? And the answers - ranging from the occult to the mundane - always seem to disappoint. Perhaps a better answer is the one Maurice Swift, the protagonist of John Boyne's new novel, "A Ladder to the Sky," gives: "The answer is no one knows where they come from and nobody should know." Not the most original response, but to be fair, Maurice Swift is a plagiarist. (Of course the name Maurice is most famously the title of E. M. Forster's novel about a doomed homosexual love affair which begins at Cambridge University.) While Maurice Swift lacks a nose for original story, he's an expert at sniffing out opportunities for advancement by exploiting, in particular, the libidinous desires of older gay authors. Unencumbered by any sense of shame, and driven by a pathological level of ambition, Maurice has the heart of a sniper. Fortunately for him, almost all of his material, whether in the form of story or professional connections, comes his way with an-antelope-stumblesin-front-of-a-lion serendipity. It helps that along with his charm and intellect (he jousts in Latin with Gore Vidal), Maurice is also disconcertingly attractive to both women and men. There is little sport for Maurice at 22, a Caravaggio in his Savoy waiter's uniform working the bar, in landing his first conquest, Erich Ackermann, a closeted 66year-old professor at Cambridge (wink, wink) and prizewinning novelist. Soon smitten, Ackermann unwittingly provides Maurice with a story - a devastating betrayal he committed out of lust during his time as a member of Hitler Youth - which Maurice pockets as easily as an apple. The seeds of it will become his debut novel, "Two Germans." While the publicity is personally and professionally shattering for Ackermann, it catapults Maurice into the center of London's literary society. It is on the arm of Dash that Maurice is transported to the Valhalla of the queer literary world, Gore Vidal's villa on the Amalfi Coast, and the reader into the mind of the author who once said, "Every time a friend succeeds I die a little." Vidal-ascharacter is marvelously engaging, barbed and witty and juiced with nasty asides (of course, he owns a first edition of "Maurice"). It is here, seen through Vidal's eyes, that Maurice feels most alive. Unfortunately, neither Maurice nor the novel, which until this point is very engaging, thrives in captivity. The narrative of the third section is Edith, Maurice's longsuffering wife. Edith is also a novelist, only vastly more talented and hardworking than her husband. Her debut, "Fury" (you see where this is going), suggests she has extraordinary promise, and her new manuscript is brilliant. For reasons that become evident only at the end of the section, Edith tells her story in direct address. It's a narrative device that is a bit baffling for the reader, given that Maurice is already familiar with the facts of their story, until a twist sends the plot, regrettably, in a different direction, away from its promising beginning as a comic novel satirizing the literary world, and toward the realm of simple satire, which glories in cliché and antic cruelty. I wish Boyne had chosen one path or the other. I cheer his attacks on the publishing industrial complex, but the strokes are so broad the assault is more ticklish than brutal. If satire was Boyne's intention, a bit more poison in the pen would have helped in drawing out the three female characters, all of whom suffer under the weight of stereotypes. The greatest mockery is heaped on an ambitious young female writer, Henry Etta James, whom Maurice once published in his brief tenure as editor of a literary magazine but now derides as insignificant. James's greatest crime? She has the temerity to not only disagree with Maurice's characterization of her work but, once rejected, to disappear. Perhaps it's not that her work was subpar. Perhaps there was just nothing there for him to steal. ELISSA SCHAPPELL, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is the author of "Blueprints for Building Better Girls" and "Use Me." Unencumbered by any sense of shame or empathy, Maurice has the heart of a sniper.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 30, 2019]

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Review by Booklist Review

This well-crafted novel by prolific Irish writer Boyne (The Heart's Invisible Furies , 2017) is about unbounded ambition. An old proverb, we're told, describes ambition as like setting a ladder to the sky ; in other words, futile. Erich Ackermann, who narrates the early portion of the novel, is an older man gay, German, an admitted former Nazi, and a much-praised writer. He describes his attraction to the handsome Maurice Swift, an aspiring writer, and also describes in detail a long-ago parallel relationship with the young painter Oskar Gott and its tragic ending, for which Ackermann was responsible. Swift incorporates the dreadful details of Ackermann's life into his own hugely successful first novel, thus ruining Ackermann's final years. Maurice, we learn, is a skilled wordsmith, but he gets his ideas from others. He is, above all, a chronic manipulator. After an interlude at Gore Vidal's Italian villa, we follow Swift on his ambition-fueled climb to ever-greater fame. The novel unfolds in an extremely layered manner, but what Swift's story slowly reveals says much about publishing, pride, deceit, and plagiarism and worse, much worse.--Mark Levine Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

This evocative saga from Boyne (The Heart's Invisible Furies) presents the Machiavellian literary success of Maurice Swift. In the late 1980s, Swift is an aspiring writer working as a waiter in West Berlin when he meets acclaimed author Erich Ackermann. Despite Swift's inexperience, Ackermann is besotted by Swift's beauty and coy sycophancy and employs him as his assistant. In a fruitless effort to win Swift's affections, Ackermann entrusts him with his darkest secret: in 1939, information he gave SS officers led to the deaths of five people. Swift then uses Ackermann's stories as the basis of a commercially successful novel, and to incriminate Ackermann. But Ackermann is just his first victim, and for the next 30 years, Swift's ruthlessness flourishes as he manipulates others' sexual desires and talents to further his literary career. Swift's story spans the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present day as his career's demise is related from the perspectives of Ackermann; a fictionalized Gore Vidal; Swift's wife, novelist Edith Camberley; and finally Swift himself. In his relentless pursuit of literary canonization, despite creative impotence, Swift is an enthralling yet profoundly disturbing protagonist. Boyne's fast-paced, white-knuckle plot, accompanied by delightfully sardonic commentary on the ego, insecurities, and pitfalls of those involved in the literary world, makes for a truly engrossing experience. Agent: Eric Simonoff, WME Entertainment. (Nov.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Maurice Swift intends to be the greatest novelist of his generation. Yet his ambition is greater than his ability. Equipped with a flexible concept of authorship and a knack for seizing opportunities, Swift becomes an award-winning author of significance, influencing literary tastes for a generation. His greatest work, however, is his life, the only subject that truly sets his imagination on fire. So consuming is Swift's focus that several people are destroyed by it: an older writer famed late in his career, a celebrity author of popular fiction with connections in publishing, and a young novelist celebrated for her stunning debut. No one can stand in the way of Swift's aspirations until he meets Theo Field, an aspiring biographer who uncovers the aging novelist's deceptions as well as the monster within the man. Will a prison cell finally contain Swift's ambition? VERDICT Boyne (The Heart's Invisible Furies) expertly explores notions of originality and authorship through multiple first-person accounts of the despicable Swift. As a result, his latest novel is absorbing, horrifying, and recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 6/10/18.]-John G. Matthews, Washington State Univ. Libs., Pullman © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An all-consuming ambition to be a successful writer drives a young man down unusual paths to literary acclaim in this compelling character study.Boyne (The Heart's Invisible Furies, 2017, etc.) opens his 11th novel for adults with novelist Erich Ackermann, 66, telling how he was beguiled by the handsome young would-be writer Maurice Swift, at whose urging Ackermann reveals his early life in Nazi Germany and a terrible secret. The revelations become Swift's successful first novel, and Ackermann's career collapses as the young man stokes media attention by disclosing his source. Cut to the Amalfi Coast home of Gore Vidal and a third-person narrator describing Swift's visit with a different older gay writer. Vidal has some good sharp-edged lines as he concedes that the young man is well-read and a good writer, but he also finds him cruelly abusive to his latest mentor. What Vidal doesn't perceive is Swift's one glaring, possibly implausible shortcoming: He has no imagination for fiction, no good original ideas for a story. The tension rises as Boyne plays on the question of how far Swift will go for a winning idea. He is married in the next section, his second novel has flopped, and four more unassisted efforts were all rejected. Meanwhile his wife's fictional debut is well-received, and she feels her second novel will be even better. This leads to a chilling confrontation, made all the more so as Boyne reveals why the wife's narration addresses Swift as "you." Other horrors lie ahead. The question of comeuppance is long left unanswered. Boyne lightens the book's deep shadows and amorality with amusing jabs at the fame game behind literary life, with its blurbs and prizes, acolytes and endless envy.Boyne's singular villain and well-sustained tension merit a good audience. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2018 John Boyne From the moment I accepted the invitation, I was nervous about returning to Germany. It had been so many years since I'd last been there, after all, that it was difficult to know what memories might be stirred up by my return. It was the spring of 1988, the year the word "perestroika" entered the language, and I was seated in the bar of the Savoy Hotel on Fasanenstraße, contemplating my sixty-sixth birthday, which was only a few weeks away. On the table before me, a bottle of Riesling had been decanted into a coupe glass that, a note in the menu revealed, had been modeled on the left breast of Marie-Antoinette. It was very good, one of the costlier wines on the hotel's expansive list, but I felt no guilt in ordering it for my publisher had assured me that they were content to cover all my expenses. This level of generosity was something new to me. My writing career, which had begun more than thirty-five years earlier and produced six short novels and an ill-advised collection of poetry, had never been successful. None of my books had attracted many readers, despite generally positive reviews, nor had they garnered much international attention. However, to my great surprise, I had won an important literary award the previous autumn for my sixth novel, Dread . In the wake of The Prize, the book sold rather well and was translated into numerous languages. The disinterest that had generally greeted my work was soon replaced by admiration and critical study, while the literary pages argued over who could claim credit for my renaissance. Suddenly I found myself invited to literary festivals and being asked to undertake book tours in foreign countries. Berlin was the location for one such event, a monthly reading series at the Literaturhaus, and although I had been born there, it did not feel like home. I grew up close to the Tiergarten, where I played in the shadow of statues of Prussian aristocrats. As a small child, I was a regular visitor to the zoo and fantasized about being a keeper there some day. At the age of sixteen, I stood with some friends from the Hitlerjugend, each of us wearing our swastika armbands, and we cheered as Begas's Memorial to Bismarck arrived in the heart of the park from outside the Reichstag as part of Hitler's plans for a Welthaupstadt Germania. A year later, I stood alone on Unter den Linden as thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers paraded before us following the successful annexation of Poland. Ten months after that I found myself in the third row of a rally at the Lustgarten, surrounded by soldiers my own age, saluting and swearing our fealty to the Führer, who roared at us from a platform erected in front of the Dom of a Thousand-year Reich. Finally leaving the Fatherland in 1946, I was accepted as an undergraduate student at the University of Cambridge, where I read English Literature, before spending several uneasy years as a teacher at a local grammar school, my accent the source of much derision by boys whose families had been traumatized and depleted by four decades of armed conflicts and unstable reconciliations between our two countries. Upon completion of my doctorate, however, I won a place on the faculty of King's College, where I was treated as something of a curiosity, a fellow who had been dragged from the ranks of a murderous Teutonic generation and adopted by a noble British institution that, in victory, was prepared to be magnanimous. Within a decade I was rewarded with a professorship and the security and respectability attached to that title made me feel safe for the first time since childhood, assured of a home and a position for the remainder of my days. When being introduced to new people, however, the parents of my students, say, or some visiting benefactor, it was often remarked that I was "also a novelist," the addendum both discomfiting and embarrassing to me. Of course, I hoped that I had some modicum of talent and longed for a wider readership but my standard reply to the inevitable question Would I know any of your books? was Probably not . Typically, new acquaintances might ask me to name some of my novels and I would do so in anticipation of humiliation, observing the blank expressions on their faces as I listed them in chronological order. That night, the night of which I speak, I had endured a difficult evening at the Literaturhaus, where I had taken part in a public interview with a journalist from Die Zeit . Uncomfortable with speaking German, a language I had all but abandoned upon my arrival in England more than forty years earlier, an actor had been hired to read a chapter of my novel aloud to the audience and, when I told him the particular section that I'd chosen, he shook his head and demanded to be allowed to read from the penultimate chapter instead. Of course, I argued with him, for the piece he suggested contained revelations that were intended to come as a surprise to the reader. No, I insisted, growing irritated by the arrogance of this disenfranchised Hamlet, who, after all, had been hired simply to stand up, read aloud and then depart by the back door. No, I told him, raising my voice. Not that one. This one. The actor took great offence. It seemed that he had a process when reading to an audience and it was as rigorous as his preparations might be for an evening on the stage of the Schaubühne. I thought he was being precious and said so and there were raised voices, which upset me. Finally, he acquiesced, but without grace, and I retained enough German to know that his reading was halfhearted, lacking the theatricality required to engage an audience. As I walked the short distance back to the hotel afterward, I felt disillusioned with the whole business and longed for home. I had noticed the boy earlier, a young man of about twenty-two carrying drinks to the tables, for he was very beautiful and it seemed that he had been glancing in my direction as I drank my wine. A startling idea formed in my mind that he was drawn to me physically, even though I knew that such a notion was absurd. I was old, after all, and had never been particularly attractive, not even at his age, when most people have the magnetism of youth to compensate for any physical inadequacies. Since the success of Dread and my subsequent elevation to the ranks of literary celebrity, newspaper portraits had invariably described my face as "lived in" or as "one that has seen its share of troubles," although thankfully they did not know just how deep those troubles ran. I felt no sting from such remarks, however, for I had no personal vanity and had long ago given up on the idea of romance. The yearnings that had threatened to annihilate me throughout my youth had diminished over the years, my virginity never conquered, and the relief that accompanied lust's exile was akin to how one might feel having been unshackled from a wild horse let loose on prairie ground. This proved a great benefit to me, for, confronted by an endless stream of handsome youths year after year in the lecture halls of King's College, some of whom flirted shamelessly with me in the hope of receiving better grades, I found myself indifferent to their charms, eschewing vulgar fantasies or embarrassing attachments for a sort of distant avuncularism. I played no favorites, adopted no protégés, and gave no one cause to suspect impure motives within my pedagogical activities. And so it came as something of a surprise to find myself staring at the young waiter and feeling such intense desire for him. Pouring another glass of wine, I reached for the bag that I'd left next to my chair, a leather satchel that contained my diary and two books, an English-language edition of Dread and an advance copy of a novel by an old friend that was due to be published a few months later. I picked up where I had left off, perhaps a third of the way through the book, but found myself unable to concentrate. This was not a problem that I normally faced and I looked up from the pages to ask myself why. The bar was not particularly noisy. There was really no reason that I could think of to explain my lack of focus. And then, as the young waiter passed me, the sweet and intoxicating scent of boyish perspiration infusing the air, I realized that he was the cause of my distraction. He had stolen into my consciousness, nefarious fellow, and was refusing to surrender his place. I set the novel to one side and watched as he cleared a nearby table before wiping it down with a damp towel, replacing the coasters and relighting the votive candle. He wore the standard Savoy uniform of dark trousers, white shirt and an elegant maroon waistcoat emblazoned with the hotel's insignia. He was of average height and regular build, and his skin was smooth, as if it rarely knew the pull of a razor. He had full red lips, strong eyebrows and a mop of unruly dark hair that looked as if it would fight with all the resolve of three hundred Spartans at the Pass of Thermopylae against any comb that attempted to tame it. He recalled to me Caravaggio's portrait of the young Minniti, a painting I had always admired. Above all else, however, there was that unmistakable spark of youth about him, a powerful blend of vitality and impulsive sexuality, and I wondered how he spent his time when he was not on duty at the Savoy. I believed him to be good and decent and kind. And all this despite the fact that we had not, as yet, exchanged a single word. I tried to return to my book but it was lost to me now and so I reached for my diary to remind myself of what the following months held in store. There was a publicity trip to Copenhagen and another to Rome. A festival in Madrid and a series of interviews in Paris. An invitation to New York and a request for me to take part in a series of curated readings in Amsterdam. Between each visit, of course, I would return to Cambridge, where I had been granted a year's leave of absence to pursue my unexpected promotional opportunities. A bored voice interrupted my fantasies, an insolent noise enquiring whether there was anything else that I needed, and I looked up irritably as the young man's older colleague, overweight and with dark bags beneath his eyes, stood before me. I glanced at the Riesling, which was almost empty--had I really drunk an entire bottle of wine alone?--and shook my head, certain that it was time for bed. "But tell me," I said, hoping that my eagerness would not be a cause for humiliation. "The boy who was serving earlier. Is he still here? I wanted to thank him." "His shift ended ten minutes ago," he replied. "I expect he's gone home by now." I tried not to let my disappointment show. It had been so long since I'd felt such a powerful and unexpected attraction to anyone that I didn't know how to act when thwarted. I was uncertain what I wanted from him but then what does one want from the Mona Lisa or the statue of David other than to sit silently in their presence and appreciate their enigmatic beauty? I was due to return home the following afternoon so could not even plan a surreptitious visit to the bar the following night. It was over; I would not see him again. Something like a sigh escaped me and I might have laughed at my own foolishness but there was no laughter inside me now, just longing and regret. The solitude I'd endured throughout my life had stopped being painful many years before but now, without warning, it had reared its head again and old, forgotten heartaches sought my attention. My thoughts turned to Oskar Gött and the single year of our acquaintance. If I closed my eyes I could see his face before me still, his complicit smile, his deep blue eyes, and the arch of his back as he lay asleep in the guesthouse in Potsdam on the weekend of our bicycling holiday. If I concentrated I could recall the anxiety I'd felt that he should wake and discover my indecency. And then, to my surprise, I was interrupted once again. I looked up and there was the young waiter, now changed into a pair of dark jeans, a casual shirt with two buttons undone at the neck and a leather jacket with a fur trim around the collar. He carried a woolen hat in his hands.  "I'm sorry to disturb you," he said, and I knew immediately that he was not German as I'd assumed but English, his voice betraying echoes of Yorkshire or the Lake District. "It's Mr. Erich Ackermann, isn't it?" "That's right," I said, surprised that he should know my name. "May I shake your hand?" He reached out. The skin on his palm looked soft and I noticed how neatly trimmed were his nails. A fastidious creature, I thought. He wore a plain silver band on the middle finger of his right hand. "Certainly," I said, a little bewildered by this turn of events. "We don't know each other, though, do we?" "No, but I'm a great admirer," he said. "I've read all your books. I read them before Dread came out too so I'm not just jumping on the bandwagon." "That's very kind of you," I said, trying to conceal my delight. "Very few people have." "Very few people are interested in art," he replied. "That's true," I agreed. "But the lack of an audience should never be a deterrent to the artist." "I've even read your book of poems," he added, and I grimaced. "They were ill advised," I said. "I disagree," he said, quoting a line from one that made me hold my hands in the air, pleading with him to stop. He beamed then, and laughed, displaying wonderfully white teeth. As he did so, a slight crinkle appeared beneath his eyes. He was so very beautiful. "And your name?" I asked, pleased to have an opportunity to stare at him. "Maurice," he replied. "Maurice Swift." "It's a pleasure to meet you, Maurice," I replied. "It's nice to know that there are still some young people who are interested in literature." "I wanted to study it at university," he said. "But my parents couldn't afford to send me. That's why I came to Berlin. To get away from them and earn my own money." He spoke with a certain bitterness in his tone but stopped himself before he could say anything more. I was surprised by how dramatic he had become, and how quickly. "I wonder whether you might let me buy you a drink," he continued. "I'd love to ask you some questions about your work." "I'd be delighted," I said, thrilled by the opportunity to spend some time with him. "Please, Maurice, take a seat. But I'll have to insist that they're charged to my room. I couldn't possibly allow you to pay." He looked around and shook his head. "I'm not allowed to drink here," he said. "Employees aren't permitted to socialize on the premises. If they catch me, I'll get fired. I shouldn't even be talking to you, in fact." "Ah," I said, putting my glass down and checking my watch. It was only ten o'clock; there was plenty of time until the bars closed. "Well, perhaps we could go somewhere else, then? I'd hate to get you into trouble." "I would love that," he said. "I slipped into your interview earlier for about twenty minutes when I was on my break. I was hoping to hear you talk but an actor was reading from Dread and not doing a very good job of it, I thought." "He was annoyed that I'd chosen a section for him to read that he didn't like." "But it's your novel," said Maurice, frowning. "What business was it of his?" "That's what I thought," I replied. "But he had different ideas." "Well, by the time I had to come back here he was still reading so I didn't get to hear you answer any questions and there were so many that I would have liked to ask. You did have something of a scowl on your face all the way through, Mr. Ackermann." I laughed. "Let's just say it was not an entirely pleasant evening," I said. "Although it has brightened up considerably now. And please, call me Erich." "I couldn't." "But I insist." "Erich, then," he said quietly, testing out the word on his tongue and looking, I thought, a little nervous. Perhaps it was my ego or my awoken desires or a combination of the two that made me happy to feel the stream of veneration making its delicate journey from his lips to my ears. "You're sure that you want to go out?" he asked me. "I don't want to intrude upon your time. You're not too tired?" "I'm not tired at all," I said, even though I was quite exhausted from an early flight and the disappointing event. "Please, lead the way. I daresay you know the city better than I do." Standing up, I cursed myself for the slight groan that emerged from my mouth as my limbs adjusted to being erect once again and, without planning to do so, reached across and held on to him by the upper arm for a moment. The muscle was hard and tightened beneath my grip. "Where shall we go?" I asked, and he named a bar on the other side of the Tiergarten, close to the Brandenburg Gate. I felt a momentary hesitation, as this would bring us close to the ruined Reich- stag, a place I did not particularly care to revisit, but nodded. I could not risk him changing his mind. "It's not far," he said, perhaps sensing my reluctance. "Ten minutes if we take a taxi. And it's usually pretty quiet at this time of night. We can talk without having to shout over the noise." "Splendid," I said. "Lead on." And as we made our way through the hotel doors he uttered the phrase that I usually dreaded but which now, inexplicably, sent waves of excitement through my body. "I'm a writer too," he said, sounding a little embarrassed at the revelation, as if he'd admitted to a desire to fly to the moon. "Or I'm trying to be, anyway." Excerpted from A Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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