cover image Random Acts of Heroic Love

Random Acts of Heroic Love

Danny Scheinmann, . . St. Martin's/Dunne, $24.95 (388pp) ISBN 978-0-312-53833-0

Young Leo Deakin wakes in a hospital in Ecuador in 1992 to discover that his girlfriend, Eleni, has died in a bus crash. Overwhelmed with guilt and grief, Leo returns to life seeking the meaning behind his new predicament: left behind, haunted by his dead lover and ambivalent over whether he should shake her hold on him. In an effort to break through his son's grief, Leo's dad imparts the tale of Leo's grandfather Moritz Daniecki, who as a WWI POW escaped across the Siberian wasteland to make it back to the woman he loved. The parallel powers of love and grief form the meeting points of these mirror sagas, which Scheinmann combines to remarkable effect. Leo and Moritz are tender, deeply feeling, put-upon characters who never descend into mawkishness; indeed, readers will feel most for Leo when he's at his worst. Dotted with strange scientific trivia, this beautiful debut novel provides deft moments of poignancy and surprise. (Jan.)