G.W. Kroeker is an American poet and noevelist who has lived in Germany
for the last twelve years. Although born in southern California, he had traveled there widely even before meeting his
German wife and moving there in 2000. Much of his writing, of course, involves his German experience in one way or another,
whether in his travel writings, his articles on German food and wine, or his poetry and novels.
Book Review for The Magi in Winter
By M.K. Turner
"The Magi in Winter," G.W. Kroeker's reissue of his 1997 novella, comes too late for a Christmas
stocking, but it is a pleasure to read at any time of the year. Erik Leiden may not be suffering in the true German
sense of his surname, but he has lost his youthful curiosity and sense of adventure, along with his departed wife, most of his once plentiful assets, and any sort of meaningful place in
the lives of his grown children. Now, finally, he has pulled himself together and set off for a Christmas holiday in
Bavaria. But as he slides into his business class seat he finds himself "even more dispirited than he had in months."
Jenny Heilman has never had a youth to lose. At 24 she has survived years
of adoption and foster care, while making do with a smattering of education, and supporting herself with meaningless and demeaning
jobs. At the point when she meets Erik Leiden, however, she has something of great value that she is determined not
to lose. Jenny Heilman is pregnant -- very pregnant -- despite
her goth persona (black bob with purple streaks, studs, nose rings, combat boots), and she is on her way to Germany to track
down the father of her baby. And, she has just had one bit of luck. Her stand-by has rewarded her the seat next
to Erik.
So begins this love story.
In lesser hands such a plot could have dissolved into mawkish sentimentality, but Kroeker has the ability to write about genuinely
good people doing genuinely good things in an utterly convincing fashion. And, of course, Christmas is not the time
or place for cynics, nor is the snow-bound family-run inn (called Drei Konige -- what else, but three kings?) in the heart
of the Bavarian forest. As Erik and Jenny come to those sudden realizations called epiphanies -- the name (with a capital
E) given to the Holy Day celebrating the recognition by the magi of the Christ child as the son of God -- we recognize that
they are, in deed, the "perfect couple."
One caveat about that Christmas stocking gift: there is a scene in the book -- a very beautiful and tender
but graphic scene -- of child birth. This may not be to everyone's liking. It was not until much later that this
reader had the drop dead thought, "What if something had gone wrong?" But, of course, it didn't. It was Christmas.
Bookreview.com rates this book excellent.
Book Review for The Magi in Winter
A Priceless Gift
By James Prothero
I have read Kroeker's other book, The Badenweiler Waltz, and found this one just as delightful. On the
surface it's about a divorced guy who finds a younger girl and they fall in love; every lonely middle-aged man's fantasy.
But this story is so much more. That fantasy scenario seems unlikely in reality, but Kroeker makes it work. And
that's because it's about so much more than a successful "May/December" relationship. The difficulty of such
a thing is merely a tension that Kroeker uses, as the man, Erik Leiden, holds back till the end because he can't believe "something
so right" could be true. But Magi in Winter is about more than a love--it's about, as Tennyson writes in the poem
"Ulysses": "How dull it is to pause, to make an end/ To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!/ As though to
breathe were life. Life piled on life/ Were all to little, and of one to me." Like The Badenweiler Waltz, the theme
here is Carpe Diem, live intensely now, here, with what is gifted to you. That, this story does marvelously well.
A satisfying read. It makes me want to go to Germany for Christmas and buy wine.
The Magi in Winter is available in paperback and Kindle editions from
Amazon.com, and from other channels.
