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A God in Ruins
Master storyteller and international bestselling author of Redemption, Trinity, and Exodus, Leon Uris once again brilliantly interweaves historical fact with gripping fiction in this powerful novel of politics, family, intrigue, love, and the passions that rule human lives.
Spanning the decades from World War II to the 2008 presidential campaign, A God in Ruins is the unforgettable story of Quinn Patrick O’Connell, an honest, principled, and courageous man on the brink of becoming the second Irish Catholic President of the United States. In an era morally unmoored, rife with armed separatists and fundamentalist zealotry, Quinn, the last great liberal of the Rocky Mountains, emerges as America’s hope to reclaim its great past and its promises of the future. But Quinn is a man with an explosive secret that can shatter his political ambitions and threaten his life—a secret buried for over a half century that even he does not know…
Returning home at the end of World War II a decorated and wounded hero, Daniel Timothy O’Connell had moved his young wife, Siobhan, from the crowded streets of Brooklyn to the golden mountains of Colorado. Building a successful life as cattle ranchers, Daniel and Siobhan had everything they wanted—except a child. Desperate, they turned to the Church and adopted a beautiful three-year-old of mysterious parentage, a charming little boy they named Quinn Patrick.
In riveting prose, Leon Uris unfolds Quinn’s life as he matures from a restless youth into a brave Marine undertaking a deadly undercover mission, and finally, into an earnest, intelligent, and thoughtful leader willing take on the most vicious and malevolently destructive forces threatening the country. Here, too, are the two beautiful women who have always loved him—Greer, the lover driven by ambition and passion, and Rita, the sensuous, adoring daughter of his friend and mentor, painter and philosopher Reynaldo Maldonado.
Through the years Quinn has made some powerful enemies who are determined to destroy him, including presidential incumbent Thornton Tomtree. A conservative computer mogul who built an electronic empire out of his father’s Rhode Island junkyard, Tomtree is a right-wing pragmatist who will court the most dangerous and deadly elements of society and risk America’s safety to achieve his own ambitions.
From America’s victorious past to its shadowed future, from the grandeur of Colorado’s mountains to the enclaves of private militias hidden deep in the canyons of the Southwest’s Four Corners, A God in Ruins races to a powerful, unforgettable conclusion. A sweeping novel of a man, a life, and a nation, it vividly brings to life memorable characters that will indelibly touch the heart and mind and illuminates the major crisis facing America at the dawn of a new millennium.
Spanning the decades from World War II to the 2008 presidential campaign, A God in Ruins is the unforgettable story of Quinn Patrick O’Connell, an honest, principled, and courageous man on the brink of becoming the second Irish Catholic President of the United States. In an era morally unmoored, rife with armed separatists and fundamentalist zealotry, Quinn, the last great liberal of the Rocky Mountains, emerges as America’s hope to reclaim its great past and its promises of the future. But Quinn is a man with an explosive secret that can shatter his political ambitions and threaten his life—a secret buried for over a half century that even he does not know…
Returning home at the end of World War II a decorated and wounded hero, Daniel Timothy O’Connell had moved his young wife, Siobhan, from the crowded streets of Brooklyn to the golden mountains of Colorado. Building a successful life as cattle ranchers, Daniel and Siobhan had everything they wanted—except a child. Desperate, they turned to the Church and adopted a beautiful three-year-old of mysterious parentage, a charming little boy they named Quinn Patrick.
In riveting prose, Leon Uris unfolds Quinn’s life as he matures from a restless youth into a brave Marine undertaking a deadly undercover mission, and finally, into an earnest, intelligent, and thoughtful leader willing take on the most vicious and malevolently destructive forces threatening the country. Here, too, are the two beautiful women who have always loved him—Greer, the lover driven by ambition and passion, and Rita, the sensuous, adoring daughter of his friend and mentor, painter and philosopher Reynaldo Maldonado.
Through the years Quinn has made some powerful enemies who are determined to destroy him, including presidential incumbent Thornton Tomtree. A conservative computer mogul who built an electronic empire out of his father’s Rhode Island junkyard, Tomtree is a right-wing pragmatist who will court the most dangerous and deadly elements of society and risk America’s safety to achieve his own ambitions.
From America’s victorious past to its shadowed future, from the grandeur of Colorado’s mountains to the enclaves of private militias hidden deep in the canyons of the Southwest’s Four Corners, A God in Ruins races to a powerful, unforgettable conclusion. A sweeping novel of a man, a life, and a nation, it vividly brings to life memorable characters that will indelibly touch the heart and mind and illuminates the major crisis facing America at the dawn of a new millennium.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
416 people are currently reading
997 people want to read
About the author
Leon Uris
90 books1,654 followersLeon Marcus Uris (August 3, 1924 - June 21, 2003) was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. His two bestselling books were Exodus, published in 1958, and Trinity, in 1976.
Leon Uris was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Jewish-American parents Wolf William and Anna (Blumberg) Uris. His father, a Polish-born immigrant, was a paperhanger, then a storekeeper. William spent a year in Palestine after World War I before entering the United States. He derived his surname from Yerushalmi, meaning "man of Jerusalem." (His brother Aron, Leon Uris' uncle, took the name Yerushalmi) "He was basically a failure," Uris later said of his father. "He went from failure to failure."
Uris attended schools in Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, but never graduated from high school, after having failed English three times. At age seventeen, while in his senior year of high school, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Uris enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He served in the South Pacific as a radioman (in combat) at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and New Zealand from 1942 through 1945. While recuperating from malaria in San Francisco, he met Betty Beck, a Marine sergeant; they married in 1945.
Coming out of the service, he worked for a newspaper, writing in his spare time. In 1950, Esquire magazine bought an article, and he began to devote himself to writing more seriously. Drawing on his experiences in Guadalcanal and Tarawa he produced the best-selling, Battle Cry, a novel depicting the toughness and courage of U.S. Marines in the Pacific. He then went to Warner Brothers in Hollywood helping to write the movie, which was extremely popular with the public, if not the critics. Later he went on to write The Angry Hills, a novel set in war-time Greece.
According to one source, in the early 1950's he was hired by an American public relations firm to go to Israel and "soak up the atmosphere and create a novel about it". That novel would be Exodus, which came out in 1958 and became his best known work. Others say that Uris, motivated by an intense interest in Israel, financed his own research for the novel by selling the film rights in advance to MGM and writing articles about the Sinai campaign. It is said that the book involved two years of research, and involved thousands of interviews. Exodus illustrated the history of Palestine from the late 19th century through the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. It was a worldwide best-seller, translated into a dozen languages, and was made into a feature film in 1960, starring Paul Newman, directed by Otto Preminger, as well as into a short-lived Broadway musical (12 previews, 19 performances) in 1971. Uris' novel Topaz was adapted for the screen and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Uris' subsequent works included: Mila 18, a story of the Warsaw ghetto uprising; Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, which reveals the detailed work by British and American intelligence services in planning for the occupation and pacification of post WWII Germany; Trinity, an epic novel about Ireland's struggle for independence; QB VII, a novel about the role of a Polish doctor in a German concentration camp ; and The Haj, with insights into the history of the Middle East and the secret machinations of foreigners which have led to today's turmoil.
He also wrote the screenplays for Battle Cry and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Uris was married three times: to Betty Beck, with whom he had three children, from 1945 through their divorce in 1968; Margery Edwards in 1969, who died a year later, and Jill Peabody in 1970, with whom he had two children, and divorced in 1989.
Leon Uris died of renal failure at his Long Island home on Shelter Island, aged 78.
Leon Uris's papers can be found at the Ransom Center, University of Texas in Austin. The collection includes all of Uris's novels, with the exception of The Haj and Mitla Pass, as well as manus
Leon Uris was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Jewish-American parents Wolf William and Anna (Blumberg) Uris. His father, a Polish-born immigrant, was a paperhanger, then a storekeeper. William spent a year in Palestine after World War I before entering the United States. He derived his surname from Yerushalmi, meaning "man of Jerusalem." (His brother Aron, Leon Uris' uncle, took the name Yerushalmi) "He was basically a failure," Uris later said of his father. "He went from failure to failure."
Uris attended schools in Norfolk, Virginia and Baltimore, but never graduated from high school, after having failed English three times. At age seventeen, while in his senior year of high school, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and Uris enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He served in the South Pacific as a radioman (in combat) at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and New Zealand from 1942 through 1945. While recuperating from malaria in San Francisco, he met Betty Beck, a Marine sergeant; they married in 1945.
Coming out of the service, he worked for a newspaper, writing in his spare time. In 1950, Esquire magazine bought an article, and he began to devote himself to writing more seriously. Drawing on his experiences in Guadalcanal and Tarawa he produced the best-selling, Battle Cry, a novel depicting the toughness and courage of U.S. Marines in the Pacific. He then went to Warner Brothers in Hollywood helping to write the movie, which was extremely popular with the public, if not the critics. Later he went on to write The Angry Hills, a novel set in war-time Greece.
According to one source, in the early 1950's he was hired by an American public relations firm to go to Israel and "soak up the atmosphere and create a novel about it". That novel would be Exodus, which came out in 1958 and became his best known work. Others say that Uris, motivated by an intense interest in Israel, financed his own research for the novel by selling the film rights in advance to MGM and writing articles about the Sinai campaign. It is said that the book involved two years of research, and involved thousands of interviews. Exodus illustrated the history of Palestine from the late 19th century through the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. It was a worldwide best-seller, translated into a dozen languages, and was made into a feature film in 1960, starring Paul Newman, directed by Otto Preminger, as well as into a short-lived Broadway musical (12 previews, 19 performances) in 1971. Uris' novel Topaz was adapted for the screen and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Uris' subsequent works included: Mila 18, a story of the Warsaw ghetto uprising; Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, which reveals the detailed work by British and American intelligence services in planning for the occupation and pacification of post WWII Germany; Trinity, an epic novel about Ireland's struggle for independence; QB VII, a novel about the role of a Polish doctor in a German concentration camp ; and The Haj, with insights into the history of the Middle East and the secret machinations of foreigners which have led to today's turmoil.
He also wrote the screenplays for Battle Cry and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Uris was married three times: to Betty Beck, with whom he had three children, from 1945 through their divorce in 1968; Margery Edwards in 1969, who died a year later, and Jill Peabody in 1970, with whom he had two children, and divorced in 1989.
Leon Uris died of renal failure at his Long Island home on Shelter Island, aged 78.
Leon Uris's papers can be found at the Ransom Center, University of Texas in Austin. The collection includes all of Uris's novels, with the exception of The Haj and Mitla Pass, as well as manus
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 168 reviews
July 2, 2012
Republicans are stupid, greedy, amoral s.o.b.'s with no redeeming qualities. Liberal democrats are the saving grace to all that is good in the world. Gun owners and anyone associated with guns are violent, anti-social, anarchist criminals just waiting to cause death and destruction. Liberals are intelligent and witty.
The saddest thing about this book is the underlying story was interesting, but all the religious dogma worshipping at the alter of liberalism really ruined it for me.
The writing wasn't really bad, it just wasn't very good. Much of the dialog was confusing and the characters actions relating to the dialog made no sense. In the parts where the hero Quinn O'Connell was supposed to be so clever and formidable, he wasn't. I saw nothing in either action or dialog that would have made the people working against him have cause for concern. Yet they went running for the door.
All in all, this one did not work for me.
The saddest thing about this book is the underlying story was interesting, but all the religious dogma worshipping at the alter of liberalism really ruined it for me.
The writing wasn't really bad, it just wasn't very good. Much of the dialog was confusing and the characters actions relating to the dialog made no sense. In the parts where the hero Quinn O'Connell was supposed to be so clever and formidable, he wasn't. I saw nothing in either action or dialog that would have made the people working against him have cause for concern. Yet they went running for the door.
All in all, this one did not work for me.
January 25, 2013
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Exodus will always be my favorite Uris book, but this one comes in a close second. Some of the other reviews I find shocking, especially those dealing with his description of technology, but after working in the computer industry for nearly 30 years, I've met many people who lacked more common human attributes and more closely resembled computers in their thought processes and mannerisms. I found the characters realistic and the storyline compelling. In fact many of the characters were spot on for the "movers and shakers" of today's industry. The inability to relate to human emotions can be all too common in the field.
October 28, 2012
Oh, embarrassment. I read this shortly after it came out and thought, in all my fifteen-year-old wisdom, that it was SO. FUCKING. AWESOME. It was my
Atlas Shrugged
, people. It promised me the political optimism I craved, and I promised right back that I'd reread it in 2008 and see if the real election of that year compared.
And then, in the years to came and as the specifics of the book became a blur and all I could remember was feeling like this book was the shit, I recommended it to people. I'd be all, you know what's coming up? 2008. You know what I'm going to do? Read this book.
And then I did. Not far into this reread, a gnawing feeling started. A feeling that this book was, maybe, not all that I had remembered. In fact, it was maybe...none of what I remembered. It's got a yelling guy in it, who's surrounded by people who think, he's a yelling guy, I should listen to him! The yelling guy is the liberal, which you know because: a) he's about to be the second Irish Catholic president b) he's got a gay assistant that he tolerates even though the assistant is gay, like those liberals do; c) he's not the Republican (although the 2008 presidential candidate's image he was most like outside of the first-Jewish-president thing was McCain). You know the Republican is a Republican because he's: a) a Southerner; b) served by a black guy; c) into technology and business before people, that cold, heartless, brilliant fucker (was he supposed to be, like, Bill Gates or something? His appointment to office actually makes even less sense than yelling guy). Then when yelling guy everybody loses their shit, which seems to speak mostly to the fears of the guy who wrote historical fiction that was instrumental in building identity of Israelis as strong Jews who survived attempted eradication, and less to the reality that occurred when Obama won in 2008 (in which many people did in fact say and do a bunch of racist shit but the streets were not a riot zone, although in many districts there was dancing).
Also, Uris has an understanding of technology the way I have an understanding of income tax allocations. Like, there's some numbers! And if you put a lot of them then you get a lot of money now but it sucks later! And if you put the round thingie instead it sucks now but then in spring, bammo! CASHY MONEY BABY, ALLOCATIONS ALLOCATED.
There is absolutely no reason to read this book, and now I'm worried that I've also been recommending his Mila 18 , which I read shortly before reading this the first time, and maybe that one's similarly less good than previously determined, and maybe everything I read and liked as a kid was really this yay-for-yelling-guys literature. Boy, am I glad that I promptly turned around and wrote my college admissions essay about my finding guidance in my study plans through readings of Transcendentalist essays. How I got in I still don't know.
And then, in the years to came and as the specifics of the book became a blur and all I could remember was feeling like this book was the shit, I recommended it to people. I'd be all, you know what's coming up? 2008. You know what I'm going to do? Read this book.
And then I did. Not far into this reread, a gnawing feeling started. A feeling that this book was, maybe, not all that I had remembered. In fact, it was maybe...none of what I remembered. It's got a yelling guy in it, who's surrounded by people who think, he's a yelling guy, I should listen to him! The yelling guy is the liberal, which you know because: a) he's about to be the second Irish Catholic president b) he's got a gay assistant that he tolerates even though the assistant is gay, like those liberals do; c) he's not the Republican (although the 2008 presidential candidate's image he was most like outside of the first-Jewish-president thing was McCain). You know the Republican is a Republican because he's: a) a Southerner; b) served by a black guy; c) into technology and business before people, that cold, heartless, brilliant fucker (was he supposed to be, like, Bill Gates or something? His appointment to office actually makes even less sense than yelling guy). Then when yelling guy everybody loses their shit, which seems to speak mostly to the fears of the guy who wrote historical fiction that was instrumental in building identity of Israelis as strong Jews who survived attempted eradication, and less to the reality that occurred when Obama won in 2008 (in which many people did in fact say and do a bunch of racist shit but the streets were not a riot zone, although in many districts there was dancing).
Also, Uris has an understanding of technology the way I have an understanding of income tax allocations. Like, there's some numbers! And if you put a lot of them then you get a lot of money now but it sucks later! And if you put the round thingie instead it sucks now but then in spring, bammo! CASHY MONEY BABY, ALLOCATIONS ALLOCATED.
There is absolutely no reason to read this book, and now I'm worried that I've also been recommending his Mila 18 , which I read shortly before reading this the first time, and maybe that one's similarly less good than previously determined, and maybe everything I read and liked as a kid was really this yay-for-yelling-guys literature. Boy, am I glad that I promptly turned around and wrote my college admissions essay about my finding guidance in my study plans through readings of Transcendentalist essays. How I got in I still don't know.
August 16, 2007
Leon Uris got old before he died. It's too bad he published this book first, because old people lose the filter between their thoughts and what they say out loud.
March 11, 2021
A very good book in parts, a bit screwy in parts. A lot to do with Gun Control and the 2nd amendment. Published in 1999, the plot has to do with a presidential election of 2008. Republicans vs Democrats. Some very good action operations, both in Iran and in Colorado.
This could be fact - 30,000 Americans are killed each year by guns. Match that against 60,000 killed in Vietnam over a 10 year period. Each year more Americans die by gunfire than are killed in traffic accidents."
This could be fact - 30,000 Americans are killed each year by guns. Match that against 60,000 killed in Vietnam over a 10 year period. Each year more Americans die by gunfire than are killed in traffic accidents."
April 27, 2016
Those who hate, must hate this book.
I had heard of it, but I had never before seen it. Those who support unlimited firepower for every one regardless of their ability or their record; those who seek to enlarge themselves by being prejudiced against everything and everyone; those who distrust the educated because they couldn't find it in themselves to become educated; those who find a million excuses for their failures but never see how their own choices have put them where they are; and those who live for ever more money and power over others; all of these and more will hate what Mr. Uris has said in this book. The only way I can understand the numerous negative reviews, is that hateing it, they must seek to prevent the promulgation of its message by providing so many strongly negative reviews. I had heard that the extreme right often did this kind of thing. I had never before seen it in action. I almost didn't buy the book because of the reviews. I am very glad now that I did.
I had heard of it, but I had never before seen it. Those who support unlimited firepower for every one regardless of their ability or their record; those who seek to enlarge themselves by being prejudiced against everything and everyone; those who distrust the educated because they couldn't find it in themselves to become educated; those who find a million excuses for their failures but never see how their own choices have put them where they are; and those who live for ever more money and power over others; all of these and more will hate what Mr. Uris has said in this book. The only way I can understand the numerous negative reviews, is that hateing it, they must seek to prevent the promulgation of its message by providing so many strongly negative reviews. I had heard that the extreme right often did this kind of thing. I had never before seen it in action. I almost didn't buy the book because of the reviews. I am very glad now that I did.
February 4, 2009
The story of an orphan from a Catholic Adoption Home who kept family records very secret. The young boy is adopted by an Irish Catholic couple and grows up into a very honest, principled and courageous man on a remote Colorado ranch. The author goes back to WW II giving us a background on his parents and those around the young man. As a middle aged man we find that he is Governor of Colorado and on the brink of becoming the second Catholic president of the United States. But his secret past - of which he knows nothing - catches up with him and could tear the country apart in January 2009.
The book moved along well and was well research in the military and gun-control history of our country. Bogged down a little for me during some of the military writings as it got technical, but otherwise entertaining, and sometimes too close to the truth. Interesting that it was written after the Bill Clinton scandal.
The book moved along well and was well research in the military and gun-control history of our country. Bogged down a little for me during some of the military writings as it got technical, but otherwise entertaining, and sometimes too close to the truth. Interesting that it was written after the Bill Clinton scandal.
August 29, 2012
I have read Leon Uris and liked him, this is not the case with this book! This is another book that just got worse and worse. At one point I was wondering if Leon just wanted to make another Michel Crichton book. I was very hopeful that it was going to be a wonderful book, but then it got worse as I realized it was about crap that I did not care about. I got to around page 500 and I could not get myself to finish it...
May 29, 2008
I've enjoyed Leon Uris before, but whoa, this was a pretty special level of bad. Stupid and lazy. Very lazy, actually.
September 7, 2010
This book wasn't for me. Which given the author is more likely my problem than his. The premise is intersting enough - the lives of 2 candidates for the US presidency, one incumbant business genius and one newcomer idealist, are told through flashbacks. The personalies are developed nicely, if a bit obviously by this method. Subjects such as gun control and the impact of humans on the environment are touched on. But it was all a bit heavy handed for me. I didn't like either of the candidates and suspect their stubborness (or is it "strength") wouldn't serve them well if either actually held the post of President. Honestly, it is rather terrifying to me that this side of the book might be realistic - surely not. The glorification of military violence and the acceptance (while stating it shouldn't be so) that women must be held to a higher standard of sexual fidelity than men were both offputting subtexts.
Uris gives us an uncompromising idealist with an adoring family and loyal friends versus a greedy business man willing to sacrifice anyone and everything to achieve his goals. If only people were so black and white, wouldn't voting be easier!
Uris gives us an uncompromising idealist with an adoring family and loyal friends versus a greedy business man willing to sacrifice anyone and everything to achieve his goals. If only people were so black and white, wouldn't voting be easier!
July 1, 2018
Leon Uris has written a lot of great historical fiction (including Exodus, Mila 18, the Haj and Trinity, one of my all time favorite books). So I have to wonder who actually wrote this book, because the writing was awful. I was almost 300 hundred pages into this book before the various stories and characters started to come together and make sense. The only reason I gave it 2 stars instead of one was the parallels between the stories (white supremacy and militia movements, Second Amendment battles, a national tragedy, a billionaire businessman president who only cares about himself and how things impact him) and today's world, especially creepy/eery since this book was published in 1999!!!
June 10, 2013
Our story opens in the autumn of 2008 and we are introduced to the Democratic candidate for POTUS who is leading the incumbent in the polls by a few percentage points. We learn that he is an orphan and he has just learned that his biological parents were Jewish. Through flashbacks that take place
throughout most of the book we learn how he and the incumbent arrived at this point in their lives. This is not Exodus or QB VII but it's a pretty doggone good read. Uris, like so many of my favorite authors, is not putting out the quality he once did. (In my opinion)
throughout most of the book we learn how he and the incumbent arrived at this point in their lives. This is not Exodus or QB VII but it's a pretty doggone good read. Uris, like so many of my favorite authors, is not putting out the quality he once did. (In my opinion)
May 30, 2016
Overall, I am not a fan of this book. It is not worth reading.
yet, I greatly appreciate the main premise of the book (which only really involves the first 20 pages and the last 10 pages of the book.)
Funny note: I took this book from Leon Uris' summer house on Shelter Island. After he died, he left a library of misprinted editions of this books. I've slept in his bed, and stepped on his floor.
When i was done reading/skimming this book, I shot it multiple times with a 22mm rifle. It now resides in Wardsboro, Vermont.
yet, I greatly appreciate the main premise of the book (which only really involves the first 20 pages and the last 10 pages of the book.)
Funny note: I took this book from Leon Uris' summer house on Shelter Island. After he died, he left a library of misprinted editions of this books. I've slept in his bed, and stepped on his floor.
When i was done reading/skimming this book, I shot it multiple times with a 22mm rifle. It now resides in Wardsboro, Vermont.
March 11, 2021
Awful. Big fan of Uris novels but this one is too much, too political, too predictable—even for him. Ironically having worked media in the 2008 campaign I can say he had no idea what he was writing about... it actually made me curious about his research for other books. Wish I had not read it.
December 28, 2007
This was by far the worst Uris. It was as if someone else was writing, someone with a political agenda and far less storytelling ability than Uris.
December 20, 2020
Leon Uris was VERY prophetic- this book was written in 1999, but it was uncanny how it parallels the next 21 years. He foretold of a rotten billionaire president, terrorism on the home front, a contentious election, rioting, burning and looting in the streets, the hatred and racism of the skinheads, the corruption of the NRA - the similarities just go on and on. He dies in 2003, but the book ends with the 2008 election. The more I read the more amazed I became.
Just a quote that sound exactly like Trump, “I’m the president. I can do any goddamned thing I want.” - it is hard to believe Uris did not use Trump as the model for his fictional president. Thornton Tomtree exhibited every evil trait that personifies Trump’s character.
I couldn’t have read this at a more appropriate time, as we have wallowed through a post-election fraught with lies and anger. I’m surprised at all the one star ratings, I think they were written before the events in the book actually happened in real time.
RIP
Just a quote that sound exactly like Trump, “I’m the president. I can do any goddamned thing I want.” - it is hard to believe Uris did not use Trump as the model for his fictional president. Thornton Tomtree exhibited every evil trait that personifies Trump’s character.
I couldn’t have read this at a more appropriate time, as we have wallowed through a post-election fraught with lies and anger. I’m surprised at all the one star ratings, I think they were written before the events in the book actually happened in real time.
RIP
October 17, 2020
The best of Leon Uris
September 30, 2023
A God in Ruins
A good read. It is not the page-turner like QB VII or Trinity or even as profound as these two or Mila 18. It was an entertaining story, not a re-read though.
A good read. It is not the page-turner like QB VII or Trinity or even as profound as these two or Mila 18. It was an entertaining story, not a re-read though.
May 9, 2024
este libro es lo peor que me ha pasado
July 20, 2021
Well, I got through it. Look, Leon Uris's turn of the century novel about...um...I guess the rise of a man who becomes President of the United States (?), is not all bad. In fact that are some parts of the novel that are quite good indeed. Unfortunately, three quarters of "A God In Ruins" contains a ponderous attempt at exploring the good, bad, and horribly ugly side of America through a lackluster storyline and poorly written prose.
World War II, racism, anti-semitism, old world values, abortion, religion, family strife, technology, human psychology, love, infidelity, duty, the U.S. military, terrorism, white nationalism, the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Zionism, gun control, art, poetry, adoption, politics, and big business are all thrown together to form a plotless tale of an adopted, Irish-Catholic hero from Colorado named Quinn Patrick O'Connell, on the verge of winning the U.S. Presidential election, discovers that his birth parents are actually Jewish Zionist fighters from Poland and Russia.
"A God In Ruins" is inexplicably framed in flashback, where both Colorado Governor Quinn Patrick O'Connell and rival President Thornton Tomtree look back on their respective lives as they go head-to-head in the 2008 Presidential election. O'Connell is faced with the confusion surrounding his secret Jewish heritage, whose revelation could cost him the Presidency. President Tomtree is faced with a fierce and unstoppable competitor, whose warmth and humanity clashes with Tomtree's ambition, greed, and lack of social awareness and skills.
The book then flashes way back to the story of O'Connell and Tomtree's parents and early childhood. The reader learns of Thornton Tomtree's genius, loneliness and alienation as he grows up motherless as the son of a Rhode Island junkyard owner. Tall and gawky, Tomtree would have been friendless as well if it weren't for his neighbor and close pal Darnell Jefferson. "A God In Ruins" tracks Tomtree and Jefferson through their friendship, business partnership founded on Tomtree's technical computer genius, rise to corporate power and later the Presidency.
However most of "A God In Ruins"focuses on the Quinn Patrick O'Connell. With a foot deeply planted in melodrama, Leon Uris goes on and on about the ups and downs and dramas in O'Connell's life. Quinn's individuality clashes with his old world, conservative and racist-rancher-Senator-father Dan. Quinn falls in love with ambitious, free spirit schoolmate Greer, and the reader is subjugated to a dull back and forth soap opera chronicling their back and forth complicated relationship. The novel also has Quinn endure another silly, complicated, melodramatic romance. This time it's with the woman who would become his wife: Rita, a wannabe poet who has been in love with Quinn ever since childhood. She has a secret, not-really-an-affair with Quinn's former best friend Carlos, that almost destroys Quinn and Rita's marriage. Ho-hum.
The book comes alive when its puts Quinn through dangerous, action-packed adventures, such as his part on a successful, yet tragic raid at a terrorist camp in the Middle East, and the time Quinn took control of a plan to take down illegal gun-runners in Colorado via a secret sting operation. Some of Quinn's speeches and tactics regarding the controversial 2nd Amendment were indeed inspiring and thought provoking.
Yet too much of "A God In Ruins" is a mess, and doesn't make much sense. The author's long reveal as to the true parentage of Quinn O'Connell and reasons why he was put up for adoption do not add up at all. Leon Uris's conclusion that an Irish-Catholic Democratic Presidential-nominee's revelation (at the last minute) that he was actually of Jewish heritage would cause nationwide riots and violence as a direct result felt illogical and idiotic. How DOES the math work on that one? And...Uris jumps from rampant riots across the U.S.A. to the day Quinn Patrick O'Connell is sworn in as President of the United States. For reasons unknown, the author skips over a very important transition: President Tomtree's agreed upon "Joy Streets" martial law plan is executed to the fullest extent...and the election itself! Was the election close? Huh? What? Whatever.
Well, yes, I got through "A God In Ruins," though I can't say I'm the better for it. Again, the book is not all bad, yet too much of the novel is embarrassingly so. Truth be told, it is unlikely I will ever spend time with a Leon Uris book again.
World War II, racism, anti-semitism, old world values, abortion, religion, family strife, technology, human psychology, love, infidelity, duty, the U.S. military, terrorism, white nationalism, the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, Zionism, gun control, art, poetry, adoption, politics, and big business are all thrown together to form a plotless tale of an adopted, Irish-Catholic hero from Colorado named Quinn Patrick O'Connell, on the verge of winning the U.S. Presidential election, discovers that his birth parents are actually Jewish Zionist fighters from Poland and Russia.
"A God In Ruins" is inexplicably framed in flashback, where both Colorado Governor Quinn Patrick O'Connell and rival President Thornton Tomtree look back on their respective lives as they go head-to-head in the 2008 Presidential election. O'Connell is faced with the confusion surrounding his secret Jewish heritage, whose revelation could cost him the Presidency. President Tomtree is faced with a fierce and unstoppable competitor, whose warmth and humanity clashes with Tomtree's ambition, greed, and lack of social awareness and skills.
The book then flashes way back to the story of O'Connell and Tomtree's parents and early childhood. The reader learns of Thornton Tomtree's genius, loneliness and alienation as he grows up motherless as the son of a Rhode Island junkyard owner. Tall and gawky, Tomtree would have been friendless as well if it weren't for his neighbor and close pal Darnell Jefferson. "A God In Ruins" tracks Tomtree and Jefferson through their friendship, business partnership founded on Tomtree's technical computer genius, rise to corporate power and later the Presidency.
However most of "A God In Ruins"focuses on the Quinn Patrick O'Connell. With a foot deeply planted in melodrama, Leon Uris goes on and on about the ups and downs and dramas in O'Connell's life. Quinn's individuality clashes with his old world, conservative and racist-rancher-Senator-father Dan. Quinn falls in love with ambitious, free spirit schoolmate Greer, and the reader is subjugated to a dull back and forth soap opera chronicling their back and forth complicated relationship. The novel also has Quinn endure another silly, complicated, melodramatic romance. This time it's with the woman who would become his wife: Rita, a wannabe poet who has been in love with Quinn ever since childhood. She has a secret, not-really-an-affair with Quinn's former best friend Carlos, that almost destroys Quinn and Rita's marriage. Ho-hum.
The book comes alive when its puts Quinn through dangerous, action-packed adventures, such as his part on a successful, yet tragic raid at a terrorist camp in the Middle East, and the time Quinn took control of a plan to take down illegal gun-runners in Colorado via a secret sting operation. Some of Quinn's speeches and tactics regarding the controversial 2nd Amendment were indeed inspiring and thought provoking.
Yet too much of "A God In Ruins" is a mess, and doesn't make much sense. The author's long reveal as to the true parentage of Quinn O'Connell and reasons why he was put up for adoption do not add up at all. Leon Uris's conclusion that an Irish-Catholic Democratic Presidential-nominee's revelation (at the last minute) that he was actually of Jewish heritage would cause nationwide riots and violence as a direct result felt illogical and idiotic. How DOES the math work on that one? And...Uris jumps from rampant riots across the U.S.A. to the day Quinn Patrick O'Connell is sworn in as President of the United States. For reasons unknown, the author skips over a very important transition: President Tomtree's agreed upon "Joy Streets" martial law plan is executed to the fullest extent...and the election itself! Was the election close? Huh? What? Whatever.
Well, yes, I got through "A God In Ruins," though I can't say I'm the better for it. Again, the book is not all bad, yet too much of the novel is embarrassingly so. Truth be told, it is unlikely I will ever spend time with a Leon Uris book again.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 12, 2024
Zeer teleurstellend
January 26, 2010
During a recent trip to the hospital, this book was handed to me to read and pass the time. A good opening had the potential to grab you. Leon Uris doesn't disappoint here. The shoo-in for the presidency in november's election, an orphan raised roman-catholic, finds one week before the election that his birth-parents, both deceased, are Jewish.
That could be a great premise but then what... The story falls apart. Uris tries to create tension in our two party system in the US with the histories of not only the RC/Jew protagonist, but his rival who is the president. If that had been handled better, perhaps this book would succeed, but Uris has chosen his battlegrounds poorly. Republicans do not do everything poorly in regards to the nation, but in God in Ruins Republicans always fail.
Democrats always succeed, and where we have some true named places and people, and ambiance, too much fictionalized that you have to read (AMERIGUN-is the NRA, Charlton Heston is their president so an Actor leads AMERIGUN...) throws the book into that thinly disguised type of clap trap.
The writing style of Uris also fails. People, all even the dumb ones, are too smart, for the use half sentences to talk to one another. Always full of depth of meaning. Our leaders maybe that smart, but I doubt it. Some of them are geniuses, some are charismatic dilettantes in reality, which Uris does not portray. All his politicians are brilliant.
So the story fails. It could have been good. It wasn't.
That could be a great premise but then what... The story falls apart. Uris tries to create tension in our two party system in the US with the histories of not only the RC/Jew protagonist, but his rival who is the president. If that had been handled better, perhaps this book would succeed, but Uris has chosen his battlegrounds poorly. Republicans do not do everything poorly in regards to the nation, but in God in Ruins Republicans always fail.
Democrats always succeed, and where we have some true named places and people, and ambiance, too much fictionalized that you have to read (AMERIGUN-is the NRA, Charlton Heston is their president so an Actor leads AMERIGUN...) throws the book into that thinly disguised type of clap trap.
The writing style of Uris also fails. People, all even the dumb ones, are too smart, for the use half sentences to talk to one another. Always full of depth of meaning. Our leaders maybe that smart, but I doubt it. Some of them are geniuses, some are charismatic dilettantes in reality, which Uris does not portray. All his politicians are brilliant.
So the story fails. It could have been good. It wasn't.
June 22, 2008
This was a book crossing book. I found it with some free newspapers in a local food coop.
This is the story of two men. It chronicles their childhoods and their ultimate rise to the position of President of the United States. It seemed to me to be an incredibly masculine book in a way that sometimes alienated me as a reader.
This is the story of two men. It chronicles their childhoods and their ultimate rise to the position of President of the United States. It seemed to me to be an incredibly masculine book in a way that sometimes alienated me as a reader.
May 12, 2019
mammoth book; didn't realize it was 20 years old and Leon died not long after; mesmerizing in places; a lot to say about gun control and politics, brings home what an unfortunate choice the current president is
October 27, 2019
Not my favorite book, but I did enjoy reading it and thought some of the prediction of where life/politics could go in the future, from a book published in the late 1990s, were.... uncomfortably accurate.
March 24, 2018
Somehow I missed this book originally. The back-and-forthing can be somewhat disconcerting but over all it is a compelling book.
September 2, 2019
good read
September 3, 2020
Excellent book by one of my all time favorite authors.
October 18, 2020
very good
February 17, 2024
I really like reading Leon Uris...this book had such an important message...but I kept thinking throughout (especially through the first half) where is the editor?! If you are as established as he was as a writer do you just get published without editing when you are towards the end of your life. A good read and glad I stayed with it...but Ugh!
"Every once in a while we stop, we think, we dislike ourselves. We don't fire these weapons. Shut us down and ten more like us will pop up. Men were butchering each other with sticks and stones till they discovered bows and arrows. War is intrinsic in the human race, driven by the most passionate of all human drives, greed."
"The human race is no less cruel, no less murderous than it was ten thousand years ago. yet every so often it runs into a moral imperative that it has to overcome for civilization to advance. In America? The revolution against England was a moral imperative. The destruction of of slavery was a moral imperative. The decision to fight Hitler and commence with atomic energy were moral imperative."
"It was like coming into a sacred place. I knew, early on, that the writer afforded me a window to our past, an understanding of human relationships that set me on a bridge to cross and participate with my own generation. I was often lonely. It was not till I read OF MICE AND MEN that I realized I was not alone and that loneliness was a universal sadness of man. I've spent a lot of time with John Steinbeck. He bared his soul to bring light to me. He bared human frailty in his pages and in his own life-as did a hundred...no a thousand other authors who knew what one little boy was going through and who stood tall for the dignity of man."
"Something is missing from that. What is missing is the personal relationship, the love between writer and reader, all the hope and all the horror the writer has to tell you. It is you and the writer alone, together, that will give you understanding about the joy and fear, the jealousy and the love you have with your parents and your sisters and brothers. I glory in the electronic age, but do not tear this building down. I believe that the salvation of man will not come from an IBM printout, but from the words, on stone indeed, that came down from Sinai. Let us not abandon all the great thought in these rooms to the proposition of putting all our faith into an impersonal machine. By so doing, we will become something less than human beings ourselves."
"The human race...has functioned from its first day on the proposition that some people are superior to others and thus empowered to rule and exploit those people of lesser stuff. Humanity is often mistaken as civility. Humans have always been somewhat less than human...every so often a MORAL IMPERATIVE demands that we must alter our sense of humanity or fade into the stardust of the universe."
"Every once in a while we stop, we think, we dislike ourselves. We don't fire these weapons. Shut us down and ten more like us will pop up. Men were butchering each other with sticks and stones till they discovered bows and arrows. War is intrinsic in the human race, driven by the most passionate of all human drives, greed."
"The human race is no less cruel, no less murderous than it was ten thousand years ago. yet every so often it runs into a moral imperative that it has to overcome for civilization to advance. In America? The revolution against England was a moral imperative. The destruction of of slavery was a moral imperative. The decision to fight Hitler and commence with atomic energy were moral imperative."
"It was like coming into a sacred place. I knew, early on, that the writer afforded me a window to our past, an understanding of human relationships that set me on a bridge to cross and participate with my own generation. I was often lonely. It was not till I read OF MICE AND MEN that I realized I was not alone and that loneliness was a universal sadness of man. I've spent a lot of time with John Steinbeck. He bared his soul to bring light to me. He bared human frailty in his pages and in his own life-as did a hundred...no a thousand other authors who knew what one little boy was going through and who stood tall for the dignity of man."
"Something is missing from that. What is missing is the personal relationship, the love between writer and reader, all the hope and all the horror the writer has to tell you. It is you and the writer alone, together, that will give you understanding about the joy and fear, the jealousy and the love you have with your parents and your sisters and brothers. I glory in the electronic age, but do not tear this building down. I believe that the salvation of man will not come from an IBM printout, but from the words, on stone indeed, that came down from Sinai. Let us not abandon all the great thought in these rooms to the proposition of putting all our faith into an impersonal machine. By so doing, we will become something less than human beings ourselves."
"The human race...has functioned from its first day on the proposition that some people are superior to others and thus empowered to rule and exploit those people of lesser stuff. Humanity is often mistaken as civility. Humans have always been somewhat less than human...every so often a MORAL IMPERATIVE demands that we must alter our sense of humanity or fade into the stardust of the universe."
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