Within the confines of an immaculate well-manicured garden–a manmade Nirvana of sorts–there is a deceptive freshness to the grounds that artfully conceal a whisper; a testimonial whisper, perhaps, that becomes audible only after its listeners have deeply suffered. This garden’s whisper is an eerie foretelling of predator and prey rising to tread upon the same blood tainted hunting lands that royalty once claimed as their own. Welcome to Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, where life in Berlin’s bountiful Tiergarten is thrumming with breathtaking vivacity.
Erik Larson introduces readers into a faux paradise when monsters have barely begun to show fangs. As Larson skillfully retells it, his two main protagonists enter Berlin with rose colored glasses. Newly elected ambassador William Dodd is sent to Berlin, where Hitler is still preparing to claim his throne. The frugal ambassador and his promiscuous daughter Martha are initially oblivious to Hitler’s predatory nature and the mounting tensions of the political world they are entering.Young Martha Dodd–swept off of her own feet by the exoticness of a Germany in the midst of a radical change, doesn’t waste time sweeping loyal gents off their feet. This roaring filly has no shame in her game, causing quite a few scandals.
While Martha is getting her groove on, ambassador Dodd struggles for peace of mind. Still a history professor at heart and a man of patriotic bearing, Dodd grapples with his duties as an American representative in Berlin. Yet Dodd is not incompetent. Initially a naive romantic, in love with a Germany long since past, he eventually emerges as a man ahead of his time, a man that doesn’t mind ruffling tail feathers when he cracks down on the copious amounts of money American representatives spend on lavish living.
Gullible or not, for the Dodds and hordes of others in Germany, the political grounds they tread upon are already shifting toward fascism. You enter into this dark orchard through the eyes of Dodd; foreknowledge of the horrendous slaughter yet to come is surreal and spine-chilling. Readers will find themselves frustrated with the American isolationist approach to this festering madness.
For as Larson reveals, there is a tussle in the U.S. over whether or not America should trifle with such ‘European skirmishes’. Roosevelt initially goes with the flow, taking the polls as the people’s voice, and mostly leaves those in Germany to deal with their own monsters. Privately, President Roosevelt and a few others are not keen on taking a step back, especially when Americans visiting Germany are being flayed open for refusing to jump on the bandwagon
Espionage escalates; the Dodds and other American leaders put their listening ears to the ground. The increasing chaos taxes the ambassador who faces relentless spying. As being watched steadily creeps into every molecule of Dodd’s atmosphere, he gradually becomes repulsed by Hitler’s Berlin. Psychotic sociopaths move in for the kill on every front. Dodd shrugs off the politics back home, and attempts to warn his country of impending doom. His warnings go unheeded, met with only closed lips and inaction.
Though the silenced Dodd presses forward to do the little limited weaponry will allow him, Martha continues to take on Germany with arms wide open. The veil of a fresh new world being reborn is ripped from her in a matter of moments when a blood purge begins. She witnesses friends and lovers suffering excruciating shame; some commit suicide just to escape the insanity of Nazi reality. A number of people that she and her family regularly wine and dine are hunted down solely on the paranoid suspicions of Hitler. For Martha such a cannibalistic hunt comes as a shock.
Larson takes readers on a haunting journey to a time and place where nothing is at it seems. Though the Dodds’ surroundings appear heavenly, the air becomes so heavy with horrific truths that readers may find themselves shouting for the Dodds to wake up and run from the monsters within and without In the Garden of Beasts.
Amber Cooper is a college student from Social Circle,GA. When not wracking her brain with her studies, she enjoys reading, discovering life, and storming baseball fields with her two boys.
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