Synopses & Reviews
From the best-selling author of
Son of the Morning Star and
Mrs. Bridge comes a magisterial tale of a great and terrible campaign, recounting one soldier's experiences of the defining war of Christendom.
"God wills it!" The year is 1095 and the most prominent leaders of the Christian world are assembled in a meadow in France. Deus lo volt! This cry is taken up, echoes forth, is carried on. The Crusades have started, and wave after wave of Christian pilgrims rush to assault the growing power of Muslims in the Holy Land. Two centuries long, it will become the defining war of the Western world.
Review
"Magnificent stuff. Readers who have already been captivated by Connell's departures from conventional fictional form will be eager to follow him down this curious and remarkable book's intricate, pristine, and illuminating path." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Review
"As presented by Connell, the medieval mind is a promiscuous mix of piety and brutality....Connell's antiquarian 'forgery,' which is in the line of novels like Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian, is a great feat of historical empathy." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Connell uses his remarkable imagination to craft stories full of vivid, minute details....Using remarkably vivid imagery, Connell researches with the eye of an expert historical scholar and writes with the hand of an expert novelist." Michael Spinella, Booklist
Review
"A book so richly detailed and gorgeously composed, so meticulously and profoundly researched that one can only wonder that its creation took but a decade....Here is one of the great books of our time, written by a living master. Read it and see." Jim Paul, San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"With Deus Lo Volt!, Connell's new novel of the Christian Crusades, he seems to have found a way to take all that is great from his early work and turn it into a devastating novel. The book is also in many ways a perfect summation of his career....Living American authors of his stature can be counted on one hand." Greg Bottoms, Salon.com
Review
"Evan Connell is a master storyteller." Ruth Lopez, Wall Street Journal
Synopsis
A magisterial work of historical imagination by the author of Son of the Morning Star, Deus Lo Volt! is a stunning, immediate, first-person account of one soldier's experience during the Crusades, the defining war of Christendom.
About the Author
Evan S. Connell long recognized as one of the most important literary voices of the latter part of the century is author of seventeen books, including the best-selling Mrs. Bridge, Mr. Bridge, and Son of the Morning Star. He recently won the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.