The Risen

March 28, 2016
This powerful and harrowing depiction of Roman oppression is also the uplifting story of a two-year slave revolt against Rome that began in 73 B.C.E., led by Spartacus, an imprisoned gladiator of legendary strength, charisma, and resolve. After a mass escape, Spartacus leads a slave army of myriad nations, clans, races, and faiths through what is now Italy, collecting 40,000 combatants and many noncombatant followers along the way. They call themselves the Risen and seek alliances in an effort to attack and destroy Rome and its tyrannical political system, but Roman allies are not forthcoming. Spartacus leads his army south to (what is now) Italy’s “toe,” intending to cross to Sicily, but discovers they are trapped due to the betrayal of opportunists and a massive, coast-to-coast, hastily built wall. They begin a long, arduous trek in freezing temperatures over snow-covered mountains toward Brundisium, with Roman soldiers shadowing their march. Monumental in scale and rich in intimately portrayed characters, Durham’s (Pride of Carthage) brilliant rendering of slavery and the horrors of war gives the novel its emotional impact.

March 15, 2016
"I'm Spartacus." "No, I'm Spartacus." No such shenanigans in this rousing historical novel, where there's no mistaking who the Thracian slave hero is. If everyone of a certain age carries in their heads the ideal of a ripped Kirk Douglas as the proletarian hero of the first century B.C.E., fantasy maven Durham (The Sacred Band, 2011, etc.) turns in a portrait perhaps more suited to, say, Brad Pitt or Channing Tatum: "A hulk of a man, muscled as only gladiators ever are, taller than a Roman, than a Greek. His longish hair and even his eyebrows shimmer like gold in the lamplight." Yep. He's Spartacus, all right, and as Durham's novel opens, in full-tilt medias res, he's down in the gladiators' pen plotting the first move in what will become a widespread slave revolt. By Durham's account--and in this there's no significant departure from what Plutarch said 19 centuries ago--Spartacus is a steely-willed but generous fellow with a secret weapon: namely, a wife with the gift of prophecy, a subject of some learned discussion as Spartacus and associates gather round the fire for strategy talks: "It seems revolts need mystics," says the Sicilian Philon, while his ascetic leader sits far enough away from the fire to enjoy the bracing cold and think good thoughts about killing Romans with a short sword. The conversation is occasionally a little too breezy to seem period-appropriate, but that lightness of touch keeps the story moving at a steady pace toward its inevitable end--and, since those readers of a certain age will have another vision of how things will wind up, Durham wisely closes at a different moment that still embraces the horror. The set-piece battles are especially well-done, fitting given Durham's sword-and-sorcery background. If the message is a little circular ("He looked free because he was free"), the yarn adds up to a competent piece of historical fiction.

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December 1, 2015

Durham, whose debut novel, Gabriel's Story, won the First Novel Award from the American Library Association's Black Caucus, as well as an Alex Award, offers a fictional account of the life of Spartacus, the gladiator who led a massive slave revolt. Durham's thinking big, as usual.

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