Critics' Opinion:
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Published Apr 2019
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Torn apart by war and bigotry, two families confront long-buried secrets in this haunting American novel of World War II and Vietnam.
In the panoramic tradition of Charles Frazier's fiction, Phantoms is a fierce saga of American culpability. A Vietnam vet still reeling from war, John Frazier finds himself an unwitting witness to a confrontation, decades in the making, between two steely matriarchs: his aunt, Evelyn Wilson, and her former neighbor, Kimiko Takahashi. John comes to learn that in the onslaught of World War II, the Takahashis had been displaced as once-beloved tenants of the Wilson orchard and sent to an internment camp. One question has always plagued both families: What happened to the Takahashi son, Ray, when he returned from service and found that Placer County was no longer home―that nowhere was home for a Japanese American? As layers of family secrets unravel, the harrowing truth forces John to examine his own guilt.
In prose recalling Thomas Wolfe, Phantoms is a stunning exploration of the ghosts of American exceptionalism that haunt us today.
BookBrowse Review
"The novel jumps between three different time periods and consequently never provides enough narrative insight into any of them. Just when I'm getting my bearings in one time and place, I'm sent somewhere else. It's about a vet recovering from PTSD after Vietnam and I feel like the author is not offering anything new on that subject. The flashbacks are upsetting but also worn. Also, the book is ostensibly about this woman who is grappling with the guilt of forcing her daughter to give up her baby in the 1940s, but everything is related from the narrator's point of view (the vet), and he has absolutely no idea what she is feeling, etc., so I feel very removed from the part of the narrative I'm actually interested in. This is the most 'men and their feelings' book I've read since I was forced to read Raymond Carver in college."
- Lisa Butts
Other Reviews
"Starred Review. It will break your heart, and in the breaking, fill you with bittersweet but luminous joy." - Kirkus Reviews
"Kiefer's story sheds light on the prejudice violence ignites and on the Japanese-American experience during a fraught period of American history, and makes for engaging and memorable novel." - Publishers Weekly
"Phantoms sings from its surreal beginning to its stunning end...In the end, the reader is left with hard truth, bitter as unripe fruit: how we try every day to erase the crimes, large and small, of our pasts, how we pretend to forget them even as they shape our every breath. This is a beautiful, relevant read." - Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing
"Phantoms is a virtuosic unearthing of buried betrayals and traumas - the kind that have the force to shatter myths, both national and personal, and to breach long-held silences. Christian Kiefer has woven a deeply powerful exploration of the way the lies we allow to slip past us can come to poison the foundations of our lives and tear asunder the lives of those around us. This book hums with the pulse of poetry and the pace of a mystery. Let it draw you in and leave you changed." - Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel
"The pacing of Phantoms felt like a perfect gallop into every sunset. From the first paragraph, I was captured by the vibrancy of Kiefer's prose, both as sophisticated and shimmering as the family secrets his characters unwind. Phantoms is a story of history, examination, and is a pleasure to read." - Natashia Deón, author of Grace, a novel
"In this eerily propulsive and devastating novel, Christian Kiefer aims for the heart, and its struggles to know truth and to love with dignity, even when unknowingly surrounded by lies...A stunning, suspenseful, heartbreakingly gorgeous read of a book." - Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of Where the end Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye
"A rapturous nostalgia haunts the pages of Christian Kiefer's new novel, Phantoms - nostalgia for lives once lived, for futures lost, for the Edenic before of decisions that cannot be undone. In aching, earthly prose, and with resolute sincerity, Kiefer explores the savage consequences of American fear." - Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Gold Fame Citrus and Battleborn
"Christian Kiefer is a masterful writer, and this magisterial novel is aching with beauty and power. This is a great book." - Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels
"Christian Kiefer's Phantoms is a kaleidoscopic marvel...In confronting the complex legacies of World War II and Vietnam, Kiefer has delivered a haunting story of the past that will make us see the present anew." - Kirstin Chen, author of Soy Sauce for Beginners and Bury What We Cannot Take
"Exploring the brutal legacies of racism and war with unflinching honesty and incandescent prose, this novel asks: Who gets to tell their stories, and who doesn't? What if you're entrusted with - or thrust into - someone else's story? Who gets to find their way home?" - Naomi Williams, author of Landfalls
This information about Phantoms was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Christian Kiefer has a PhD in American literature from the University of California–Davis and directs the low-residency MFA at Ashland University. The author of The Animals and The Infinite Tides, he lives with his family in Placer County, California.
Name Pronunciation
Christian Kiefer: KEEF-er
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