Thanks to NetGalley and New Europe Books for an egalley in exchange for an honest review. As it was archived before I could download a copy. It is my purchased Kindle version that I am reviewing today.

Publisher Description:
The Solace of Trees tells the story of Amir, a young boy of secular Muslim heritage who witnesses his family’s murder in the Bosnian War. Amir hides in a forest, mute and shocked, among refugees fleeing for their lives. Narrowly escaping death, he finds sanctuary, and after a charity relocates him to the United States, the retired professor who fosters Amir learns that the boy holds a shameful secret concerning his parents’ and sister’s deaths. Amir’s years in the US bring him healing. As Amir enters adulthood, his destiny brings him full circle back to the darkness he thought he’d forever escaped.

Described from the perspective of a child victim, The Solace of Trees is the lesser-told story of the tragedy of war, from the Bosnian War to the US policy of government-sponsored abductions. A tale shared by countless victims in countless times and places, it is both a sobering look at the hidden cost of war and an affirmation of the human spirit.


What I THOUGHT

This was the type of novel that I always describe as needing tiny sips instead of gulping down all at once. Robert Madrygin's descriptions of the horrors Amir witnesses during the Bosnian Genocide were so vivid that at times, I needed to lay the book aside and sit with my thoughts for a bit. There are moment where the book moves at a slow pace but as I drew the near end of the novel, time sped very fast and we are left with an open-ended cliffhanger which provides us with a little hope. I felt very moved by the relationship between Amir and his American foster mom/adoptive mother, Margaret. Madrygin provides us with plenty of food for thought as the topics of genocide, identity, nationality, relationships etc come into play during the course of the novel.

The only aspect of the book that I didn't care for was the scene with the farmer, Zoran and the cow. I question why the author felt that scene was at all necessary in the novel. It had already been emphasized by another character that Zoran and his mates were active participants in the genocide, that he was essentially a monster and that Amir was in great danger. Scenes of beastiality shouldn't be what I remember most about the novel, but unfortunately it is one of those chief memories burned in my reader brain and that is unfortunate.

Trigger Warning: Scenes of physical and sexual violence


Publication Date 13/07/17
Goodreads review published 26/05/22

I really wanted to like the Solace of Trees and the first part set in Bosnia (during the war) was good enough to look past the unbearably TELL!!!! not show prose but I could not make it past the passive and tedious years in the USA.

The first part of this book was beautiful.
The descriptions of nature are almost poetic as Amir, having escaped from the horror of his family being massacred, finds solace, and relative safety, in the forests he loves so dearly.
The physical shock of an explosion and the emotional shock of his experiences have left Amir deaf and mute so the world we view through his eyes is beautiful but confusing, frightening but peaceful.
When Amir is ‘adopted’ by Josef the boy he meets on the farm a little more agency and ‘noise’ is given to Amir’s search for safety as they try to find their way to a refugee camp encountering dangers and horrifying scenes on their way.

Following Amir’s heart-rending arrival at the camp the prose becomes stark and matter of fact, switching between an aid workers’ impressions of Amir and lists of the various steps taken to ensure the bureaucracy will give Amir the kind of refugee status that will enable him to be adopted in the USA.
When Amir moves to the States he lives with a foster family at first then moves to a permanent family. Great effort is made to show that Amir’s adoptive mother not some well-wishing do-gooder with romantic ideas concerning adopting refugees but a thoughtful professional able to provide Amir with both the stable home life and medical treatment he requires.
This part of this part of the story is more prose narrative that the assessment report style of the refugee camp but the writing only approaches the beauty of the first section when he returns to explore with his beloved trees.
The story moves on and eventually Amir goes to university. We are given an account of the events in Amir’s life but it all seems rather vague and Amir rarely seems to have strong opinions or emotions about what is happening in his life. Even though he associates with other Bosnian’s they never seem to indulge in the activities common to every immigrant I have ever met: reminiscing about and seeking out the food, and occasionally the music, of their home land. They all seem to be stunned into a passivity that prevents them from fully interacting with their surroundings.

When Amir finally decides he must return to his homeland it seems we may finally arrive at some sort of conclusion but then on his arrival in Bosnia he is arrested and taken away and is suddenly catch up in the shameful events so euphemistically named ‘extraordinary rendition’.

Whatever your feelings about these events or the how the author chose to depict them to me it felt totally out of place in this story creating an unsatisfying, inconclusive end to the book. The author’s approach to this subject was not inappropriate in and of itself but the style of writing was discordant with the rest of the book and section felt as if it had ‘tacked’ on at the end because the author suddenly realized it was an ‘important subject that must be addressed’.

I felt that this book had a lot of potential that was never fully realised and would have created a more cohesive whole as a novella.

A moving and well written book, this is the story of Amir, but also an uncompromising and at times heartbreaking examination of the brutality of war. The early part of the book deals with Amir's life in Bosnia, as the conflict engulfing the country moves closer to his home his family are drawn into the crisis with tragic repercussions. Still in shock from the death of his family, Amir flees to the only sanctuary he knows , the nearby forest, a place where he spent many happy hours with his father. Deafened by an explosion and mute from the trauma, he finally winds up working on a farm, but as the war draws closer again he must flee. After a dangerous journey he winds up in a refugee camp and is eventually sent to the US for treatment. Once there he winds up being fostered, and grows up into a strong young man, who never loses his love for trees and nature. However in the wake of 9/11 the American he has come to love and call his home becomes a very different place, and soon Amir finds himself under suspicion and in danger because of this.
The parts of this book set in Bosnia were incredibly vivid, and hard hitting without being grotesque. The reader is never left in any doubt that the worst victims of war are the civilians who find themselves caught up in it, and often left devastated in its wake, and Amir's story is a perfect allegory. The author does a great job of bringing the country and its people to life, and builds a vivid home for his character, which goes a long way towards helping us to understand and empathise with his situation. I thought the title of the book was perfect, as Amir's love for nature, and his feeling of safety in the woods is something that he carried with him from his old home to his new one. I felt that although Amir's early years in America were generally well described and dealt with, it would have been better to have a little more about his time at school and his interactions with his peers.
I did feel that the ending of the book was not quite as strong, and the conclusion,while it fit the story being told, left me feeling a little unsatisfied.
This is a solid 3.5 stars

Robert Madrygin’s The Solace of Trees opens with Amir being interrogated by Bosnian officials demanding to know why he’s come back to Bosnia. He left Bosnia ten years earlier, an eleven-year-old war orphan refugee. They ask him if he is Bosnian or American and he wonders if he is either which leads him back to the day he woke up in the forest, his family dead, their home destroyed by a grenade, his hearing and his voice gone. From there, the story moves forward, telling of his escape to the U.N. refugee camp, a harrowing, tragic escape assisted by a Serbian boy he befriended.

They assume he is disabled, which makes it possible for them to send him to the United States to live with a foster family and get the help he needs and his find safety. There he is adopted by a psychology professor who had retired. He finds family with her and her family and grows up, goes to college, meets a girl, and follows her back to Bosnia for a vacation. But he’s Muslim, it’s post-9/11 and helping out one of his teachers, a controversial advocate for Palestinians, casts a wide cloud of suspicion, bringing us to the beginning and his trip through the horrors of American counter-terrorism post-9/11.

The Solace of Trees should be right up my alley. It’s a story that asks us to think about war and about how we casually accept collateral damage, how we ignore the civilian casualties, how we care so much about an individual American who dies while not even knowing the thousands of non-Americans who die. It expresses a lot of my politics. The story is compelling, harrowing, and grim. However, it suffers from too little faith in its readers.

You know how a black and white photo seems so much more intriguing than a color photo or how Van Gogh’s Night Sky is so much more compelling than NASA’s, it’s because the viewer has to engage emotionally, has to participate in comprehending the picture. When an author not only tells us what happens, but also what everyone is thinking, we have no work to do. We don’t get to question why things happen, we don’t get to puzzle out people’s actions and feelings. We don’t have to get involved or care, because we are not participating in the story, we are receiving it, pre-digested. Worse, not only are we told what everyone thinks, we are told what we should think.

Here’s the thing, we readers are smarter enough to figure it out for ourselves. Not giving us room to do that leaves us detached, and frankly, feeling patronized. I thought there was this marvelous plot that could effectively engage readers emotionally and move them to care – particularly with the issue of war refugees so urgent right now. But, how can we engage when we are reading on idle?

That said, the sections of the book that explore the solace of trees – the beautiful prose, the passionate love of the wild, the breeze, the wind, the sounds, all of it. That is amazing. If Madrygin could write about the rest with that kind of showing, that kind of absence of explanation, this book could have been magical.

The Solace of Trees will be released on July 11th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Solace of Trees: A Novel by Robert Madrygin


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American or Bosnian? The truth was, he felt neither completely one nor the other.

During the Bosnian war, Young Amir sees his family murdered. The Solace of Trees is where he finds shelter, hiding in the forest deaf and mute, all alone, suffering from severe shock. Nowhere is safe for him, a boy of Muslim heritage though he finds a sort of brotherhood in Josif. Together they step into further danger and Amir finds himself at a UN camp unable to communicate. Through art therapy, pictures- a therapist is able to extract a story from the young orphan. Pia finally has his name, so maybe she can make sense of where he belongs and can locate his family! But her hopes are crushed, only to discover the boy escaped a slaughter. Suffer the children, what sense can she make of what is in the children’s eyes? Pia is horrified by the pain and terror, defeat she sees in the eyes of grown men but to know a child lived through unimaginable horrors is unconscionable. His salvation is to live in America, a place foreign to a boy who has survived a war-torn existence. Amir is numb and has no idea what awaits him on the other side of the globe. This numbness remains, but with foster parents The Thorenson family in America he learns to sign and is met with patience. His future has felt for so long directionless, chaotic. Why silence embraced him he assumes is due to the explosions but in truth, it may well be trauma, grief and the horror of what he experienced, what no child ever should. Where will he go next, what does it matter to someone who has been wandering, anchored by nothing, haunted by horrors?

Dreams, memories haunt his sleeping nights… but now with Margaret Morgan, a retired professor, he is slowly feeling human again. Morgan is about to make a decision that will change both of their lives. Margaret fosters the young boy, through trying times, home-schooling, and joy she feels in their solitude she knows she must push him to become a part of the larger world. His treks into the woods, forests are a part of Amir’s nature, one that keeps him connected to his past, a world he shares with Margaret. Through her love, he finds strength but Amir gives as much to Margaret.

The future is open to him with film documentaries, a way for Amir to understand his past. In college he finds love but when he works on Dr. Ashrawi’s documentary and 9/11 happens everything spirals and the professor is in trouble for his connections to terrorist groups. When he returns to Bosnia with his girlfriend, the terror he thought was long buried returns, his involvement with the professor may be what leads him back to the horror and darkness he left behind. He was saved once, but can he escape again? Is there a reason to hope?

I always do a lot of soul-searching after reading about war torn countries and orphaned children of such atrocities. It’s never something people living in a free world can ever comprehend, we can watch as many movies and read as many books as we can get our hands on but it’s not the same thing. However, this novel attempts to share the experience through Amir’s eyes. To say it’s heartbreaking seems to minimize the reality non-fictional children live and breathe, so I will just say this is a sobering read, one that stays with you.

Publication Date: July 17, 2017

New Europe Books

This was an amazing book. Very emotional, very heart wrenching, then heart warming, then back to heart wrenching. There was a point where I thought the story was going a bit slow; I wanted something to happen. But then suddenly the story was going too fast! I wanted it to slow down. When the book ended I wanted more. The only bad thing about this book!

This story by Robert Madrygin read for me like a morality play, where rather than Everyman, main character Amir here is Everyvictim. As a little boy growing up in a quiet Bosnian village, his loving father taught Amir an appreciation for nature, and the safety of the woods is what saves Amir from ethnic cleansing, overwhelming psychological trauma, and utter loneliness. But the solace of trees is hardly sufficient against the scope challenges facing Amir, a series of heart-wrenching atrocities. Amir's natural intellect and penchant for hard work make him a sympathetic character, one the reader suffers along with throughout this tragic tale.

I found the pace and flow a bit plodding, and the telling of most of his story to be rather drily removed, nearly clinical in its methodical steadiness, and relative lack of emotion. So much so that when Amir and love interest Jadranka's relationship heats up it felt like I was suddenly reading a different author. Similarly, Amir's creative urges and a drunken college party felt a bit foreign as well, but nothing problematic enough to take away from the profound messages of this parable-like story - that there is no straight-up black and white or full-on good and bad, that global race relations are complicated, and every human being deserves equal rights.

This is a very powerful novel about war and its repercussions. This story follows a young Bosnian boy named Amir, who's family are Bosnian Muslims and a group that was targeted for ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War in the early part of the 1990's where the province split along ethnic lines, and the Bosnian Serb forces began a methodical effort to seize control of as much territory as possible.
In this story we follow young Amir, eleven years old at the time of his families, death as he makes his way across the country muted by an explosion and unable to talk, sometimes meeting up with other refugees as they flee the horrors of what has happened.
Amir eventually finds a bit of refuge at a UN camp, after having done a small stint working on a farm and befriending another young boy in the same situation. Once at the camp, where he is sent to the USA by a charity group as he does not seem to have any living relatives.
Once in The United States, he is fostered by a couple of people, the second one a retired professor, decides to adopt him and does everything she can to get Amir the help that he needs for his pent up memories. In this relationship, grows a strong love between the mother and her adoptive son; extending to her daughters family as well. Amir soon begins to let go, but not forget his tortured past. He always seems to have a bit of hope for humanity despite what he has gone through.
He always kept nature close to him, and in this way he was able to feel closer to the family he lost, and the father who had taken the time to let Amir know the importance of staying still and listening to what is around you.
Once in college Amir finds a love for film making, and is able to express himself through short documentaries, which allow his feelings, about nature and war be felt by many.
Unfortunately while in college, and taking a class with a professor of Islamic Studies, Amir is asked to edit a film for his professor, on the plight of the Palestinians, but 9/11 has just happened and his professor is arrested for having ties with terrorist organizations, and Amir's name on the documentary does not look good.
About to take a trip back to Bosnia with his girlfriend also from his home country. They are excited to see the sites but also the town where he grew up and visit with her mother and sister, who had survived the concentration camp as well. When they arrive in the country, Amir is once again thrown into upheaval and the uncertainties and terror he escaped as a child.
This story is very hard to read at times, but so well executed, and the Author has given Amir that little bit of hope as a character for humanity. Very readable, you will not want to put it down until you find out where his life takes him.
Thank you NetGalley and New Europe books for the ARC of this book.