The Eye of the Day

Set in Canada, Cuba, Mexico, the U.S., and various European locales including Auschwitz and the Italian front line, the Second World War saga revolves around the theme of the guises we choose into order to survive. Smith (Scavenger) writes of the fated interconnection of "giant" former miner Amos and Aubrey, his well-heeled Vermont employer's passive teenage son. Their relationship is interrupted when novel splits into parallel plots and opts for set pieces of cinematic drama. For Aubrey, these include scenes with Greta Garbo, a villainous Dupont and miscellaneous Nazis. Over the same six-year period, Amos hikes from Vermont to Quebec and saves a young woman named Kona (which means snow in Cree) from drowning. In love, the couple crosses the country spiking trees. Amos skis the Alberta Rockies pursed by a dozen expert skiers hired by corrupt oilmen and slaloms to Montana. Conscripted by the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division, he ends up fighting in the Alps where he is reunited with shell-shocked Aubrey. Burdened by lengthy descriptive passages and strained lyricism, the novel is marred by too many narrative trajectories and coincidences that stretch credulity. Agent: Dean Cooke, The Cooke Agency. (Feb.)