The Arch

by Gary Crask

The Arch, a work of historical fiction, is the dramatic life story of an Austrian immigrant, Charlie Wilhelm. Charlie was born in 1918 in Vienna near the end of World War I, and died in 2016 some 97 ½ years later. He was born when the transition from the horse to the automobile was not complete, commercial air travel did not exist, the radio only experimental and electricity along with indoor plumbing were mostly available only in cities. He lived through two world wars, a Great Depression and that was just the first twenty-seven years of his life. He would go on to witness many other wars, space travel, a man walk on the moon and the internet with all its ramifications. It is doubtful that any generation, past or future, ever did or ever will experience more change. His amazing life, filled with excitement, adventure, love and tragedy, makes for an entertaining and compelling story. But it is, mostly, a story about HOPE.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is…fine. If I could rate it in partial stars, it’d be a 2.75. I liked the characters overall and I liked the idea behind the arch theme. I was disappointed in the book though - I didn’t find the story to be very compelling which made it hard for me to want to be invested in knowing more about the characters and to finish the book.

I also feel like additional editing could have gone a long way. There was a decent amount of information presented, then repeated again almost exactly as it was written the first time, and the repeats didn’t lend themselves to furthering the story, so the book felt longer than it needed to be. I also ran across multiple sentences that were missing words or contained spelling errors which detracted from my enjoyment of the book since it caused me to have to reread the sentences to understand them (or made me cringe).