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After Dachau: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ Daniel Quinn (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From the author of the bestselling novel Ishmael, 1992 winner of the highly controversial $500,000 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, comes this absorbing cautionary tale imagining a homogenous future society. In 1992 A.D., when the narrator, Jason Tull Jr., the dilettante scion of a famous, incredibly wealthy family, graduates from college, he decides to work for We Live Again, an underfunded foundation dedicated to tracking down and authenticating reported instances of reincarnation. After 10 years and hundreds of dead-end investigations, Jason encounters the case of Mallory Hastings, a 28-year-old librarian from Oneonta, N.Y., who, following a minor car wreck, regains consciousness as a deaf mute. Hoping he has finally stumbled onto the elusive "Golden Case," Jason gains Mallory's confidence. He is ill-prepared, however, to cope with the enormity of his discovery: the person now occupying Mallory's body is Gloria MacArthur, a Manhattan artist born in 1922 A.D. But this is only a hint of a dark, complex conundrum, for the "new" Mallory has scarcely learned to talk when she realizes that Jason's A.D. is not the Christian anno Domini. Quinn's provocative, Orwellian tale imagines that Adolf Hitler beat the Allies to the A-bomb in 1944 and set in place a chilling plan to achieve a world of Aryan perfection. In Mallory/Gloria's brave new world, 2002 years have passed "after Dachau," the chilling A.D. of the title. (Feb.) Forecast: Since the publication of Ishmael and its two companion volumes, My Ishmael and The Story of B, Quinn has gained a cult following. The added intrigue of a revisionist, Nazi-dominated history will likely rally fans, and Context's vigorous promotional plans, including a 20-city reading tour in March to support a 30,000-copy first printing, may extend Quinn's reach.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This disappointing, poorly conceived new fantasy novel mixes reincarnation, sf, Abstract Expressionism, and the Holocaust. The plot will be familiar to readers who know Quinn's most popular novel, Ishmael, the story of a telepathic gorilla and the dark secrets he reveals about man's conquest of nature. In After Dachau, the year is 4000 C.E., and a dark secret about human history is once again revealed, this time related to genocide. The Aryans have systematically exterminated every other race, and they have somehow been able to conceal the truth about this horror from the masses. Although Quinn's work in Ishmael and elsewhere suggests that he has had interesting and important things to say, this is not his best work. The plotting and characterization are very weak, and Quinn's observations about racism and bigotry, which might have redeemed the novel's other weaknesses, are, unfortunately, superficial and uninspiring. Not recommended. Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 230 pages
  • Publisher: Context Books; First edition. edition (February 1, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 189395613X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1893956131
  • Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #353,993 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Daniel Quinn
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Customer Reviews

57 Reviews
5 star:
 (31)
4 star:
 (12)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (4)
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 (4)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (57 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Stunning, April 19, 2001
By Jason N. Mical (Bellevue, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I picked up this book at 10:00 last night. It's now three AM, and I jusy finished reading it cover to cover.

After Dachau is simply that good.

A fan familiar with Daniel Quinn's other works, I was pleasantly surprised to find After Dachau to be a more carefully constructed novel than books like Ishmael. Instead of philosophy revealed through conversation, the reader is instead presented with an enormous metaphor.

The premise is simple: a wealthy member of the idle rich persues his dream by volunteering as a researcher at an institute that studies reincarnation. Assigned to a case in New York, he soon finds that nothing is as it seems.

Those who know Quinn's views of human history will likely be able to sniff out the metaphor early on, but After Dachau is accessable even to the average reader. Rather than a dystopic novel like "1984" or "Brave New World," which some of the reviews seem to liken After Dachau to, this book instead forces us to examine our past, rather than be concerned about our future (although a concern for the future logially follows examination of the past!)

I can highly recommend this book. It has the potential to take its place among works like "1984" and "BNW" in classrooms across the world, and it likely should be afforded such an honor.

Give it a read; you won't be disappointed.

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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Two books in one, July 2, 2001
By kacunnin (Bowie, MD USA) - See all my reviews
Daniel Quinn's "After Dachau" is really two very different books in one, divided by a clever "trick." The first half is a suspenseful and exciting mystery story centering on the possible discovery of a truly documentable case of reincarnation. The two main characters find themselves on a journey of self-discovery as they explore what it really means to be an individual. If you're a fan of speculative fiction or psychological mysteries, you'll easily get wrapped up in the first part of "After Dachau."

Then comes the "trick." I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't yet read the book, but it's sort of a "Sixth Sense" kind of thing -- a plot trick that shifts the entire course of the novel and changes everything you've read so far.

After the trick (sort of after Dachau!), the book becomes a cautionary tale about what the world could become if we continue to live our lives as the selfish, entitled, "takers" we western white-folks really are (if this doesn't make sense, read "Ishmael"). It's not a bad cautionary tale, and even if you're not a DQ fan, you'll easily see the point he's making. But the book would have been stronger had Quinn stuck with a distorted interpretation of ACTUAL history (a new and frightening way to look at the world of the last 60 years), rather than the alternate history he gives us in "After Dachau". The world the two main characters face in part two of this book is NOT our world -- and as such, it's easy to step back and ignore the message. After all, WE didn't do what these people did. The world we live in today is NOT the world of "After Dachau."

What bothered me most about "After Dachau" was the short disclaimer Quinn placed at the end of the book, disavowing any interest or belief in reincarnation. Clearly the entire first half of the novel was merely a way of sucking in the type of readers who might be susceptible to his philosophy. Once you get past the mid-point (and the "trick"), you're his and the reincarnation story is dropped. Too bad. A really good novelist (without such an obvious agenda, perhaps) would have known how to integrate the story with the message. It would have made a better novel -- and, in the end, a stronger message.

It's a thought-provoking book, however, which is rare -- thus the four stars. Read it. It's worth the time, and you can argue with your friends about it afterward (what's better than that?)!

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Quinn's best book, January 29, 2001
By Derrick Jensen (Crescent City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)   
Daniel Quinn is one of our most important novelists, working with the most important theme of today: how can we survive the insanity that is civilization? And this is Quinn's best book. I read it in one sitting, and for the last thirty pages I couldn't stop crying, even though I was on a crowded airplane. It's an extraordinary, and extraordinarily moving, book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Padded, I fear
This book was over 200 pages (in large type) but was actually completely covered in Quinn's earlier book "Story of B" in which a character posed the question "what if everything... Read more
Published 6 months ago by J. Bailey

1.0 out of 5 stars Drawn out+inane+irrelevant+unhelpful ambiguity=After Dachau
The reason my eye was drawn to this book was because of the word "Dachau". I've been studying the Holocaust ever since I could read and I've even been to the concentration camp... Read more
Published 8 months ago by T. Miller

5.0 out of 5 stars curl into a ball...
is what I wanted to do after reading this book and Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. It's frightening that what Orwell, Quinn, Bradbury, and Burgess wrote about are happening. Read more
Published 19 months ago by misanthrope

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea... poor delivery
I have often thought about what would have happened if the Nazis had succeeded in World War II, so I thought that this book would be a very interesting read. Read more
Published on December 29, 2007 by D. Sato

2.0 out of 5 stars A sloppy and lazy story
I give this book two stars rather than one based solely on the potential of the ideas at its core. Which is exactly why the book is so disappointing-- what a rich opportunity for... Read more
Published on May 29, 2007 by C. Hansen

5.0 out of 5 stars I CARE
Another brillant book by Daniel Quinn. This book has an interesting and captivating story and I love the way he illustrates a very important and powerful message in this book... Read more
Published on May 6, 2007 by Jennifer Esposito

5.0 out of 5 stars a great book in its self...
daniel quinn is an amazing writer and the books that i have read by him are as easy flowing as the nile. Read more
Published on September 8, 2006 by G.Jones

4.0 out of 5 stars "History is an agreed-upon fiction." -- Napoleon Bonaparte
What if everything you'd been taught about history was wrong? What if nothing had actually happened as the textbooks say? Read more
Published on August 9, 2004 by Monika

4.0 out of 5 stars A very creative and excellent novel.
Quinn really thought outside the box on this one. If you like dumbfounding moments of realization, for example, like you experienced if you watched the movie The Sixth Sense,... Read more
Published on June 27, 2004 by zzz

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't read the book jacket
While I might have expected more in the way of content and length from Quinn, I still heartily enjoyed the book. Read more
Published on December 14, 2003 by Peter Swift

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