An award-winning poet and novelist, Enquist (The Secret
) presents a slim volume of dramatic monologues. In the first piece, set in 1906 Vienna, Alma is a pianist whose role has morphed into wife of the composer, Gustav Mahler, and mother to his children. During Mahler's absence, Alma reflects on her life with the man who forced her to give up her music. In another monologue, Cato is a young woman anxiously searching for her lover in war-torn 1940 Rotterdam, not afraid of the bombs but that “he has forgotten me.” In “The Doctor” a black physician in Rotterdam, whom the Nazis insult by not allowing him to treat their general, faces an ethical dilemma. Although Enquist creates believable protagonists, her lapses into melodrama are overkill; the backdrop of war and the resulting pain has pathos enough. (Apr.)
