The Report: A Novel

Product Description

A stunning first novel that is an evocative reimagining of a World War II civilian disaster
On a March night in 1943, on the steps of a London Tube station, 173 people die in a crowd seeking shelter from what seemed to be another air raid. When the devastated neighborhood demands an inquiry, the job falls to magistrate Laurence Dunne.
In this beautifully crafted novel, Jessica Francis Kane paints a vivid portrait of London at war. As Dunne investigates, he finds the truth to be precarious, even damaging. When he is forced to reflect on his report several decades later, he must consider whether the course he chose was the right one. The Report is a provocative commentary on the way all tragedies are remembered and endured.

From Publishers Weekly

Kane (Bending Heaven) explores the fallout from a catastrophe that occurred in war-weary 1943 London to mixed results; the historical material and characters are wonderful, but the plot is deeply contrived. The newly built Bethnal Green tube station was serving as an air-raid shelter when 173 people suffocated to death in a mystifying pile-up in a stairwell. As rumors swell about possible causes, magistrate Laurence Dunne is assigned to investigate. Kane skillfully reimagines the empathetic Dunne as he interprets the confessions and accusations of a community crushed by loss and guilt. In a linked narrative set in 1973, Paul, who was orphaned in the tragedy, tries to persuade Dunne to be interviewed as part of a documentary he’s directing. Meticulous historical detail and vivid descriptions of hunkered-down and rationed East Enders add a marvelous texture, but Kane runs into trouble by trying to establish that the tangle of noble and selfish intentions that contributed to the calamity can’t be unknotted, while simultaneously tugging on a stubborn thread that will, for the sake of plot, prove the opposite.
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Review

“[Kane] moves deftly among perspectives on the [Bethnal Green] catastrophe: We eavesdrop on war-battered townsfolk, the tardy policeman, the overburdened priest, the devastated shelter-chief who feels responsible. Kane’s command of period detail is marvelous. . . . A deft, vivid first novel.” ―Kirkus Reviews
“Kane skillfully reimagines the empathetic [Laurence] Dunne as he interprets the confessions and accusations of a community crushed by loss and guilt. . . . Meticulous historical detail and vivid descriptions of hunkered-down and rationed East Enders add a marvelous texture.” ―Publishers Weekly
“The Report is a graceful and dignified look at a single event that quickly becomes something so much more expansive: a kaleidoscopic examination of crowds, of disasters, of reverberations and reckoning. I was absolutely riveted.” ―Anthony Doerr, author of Memory Wall and The Shell Collector
“I began reading this story hoping it would aim my judgment at some one person who had made the fatal mistake. But The Report cracks that hope and replaces it―as only the bravest novels can do―with a vivid exploration of the events themselves in all their disquieting tangles. This book shows us that the single sin for which judgment hopes is a lie. The truth is not one misstep but a horde of them, hidden in a tunnel that this novel brilliantly excavates.” ―Salvatore Scibona, author of The End
“An absorbing, thought-provoking first novel about a terrible civilian tragedy during wartime, The Report manages the delicate literary feat of being both a probing historical inquiry into a disaster, and a moving, multi-faceted portrait of a community under extreme duress. Jessica Francis Kane’s authorial control of her material is impressive; the book’s moral complexities linger long after the book is finished. A memorable debut.” ―John Burnham Schwartz, author of The Commoner and Reservation Road
“Elegantly written and suffused with insights into human motivation, The Report illumina