Olympia tells the story of three generations quietly grappling with the emotional fallout of war. There are the grandparents, Lottie and Rudolph, who met while competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics; their son and his wife, who emigrated from Germany after World War II; and the grandchildren--Peter, who narrates, and his sister Ruby, both Canadian-born children of the '70s. Into this portrait Bock skillfully splices imaginary outtakes from Leni Riefenstahl's film of the 1936 Olympics, The Olympiad. The result is a layered album of family stories and a moving meditation on the intersection of memory, identity, and the past.

Early on we discover that this family is Lutheran, not Jewish--and that Bock is tackling the uneasy question of what it means to be German in this century. He avoids generalizations about guilt or complicity in the war, aiming for something more delicate, more murky. "It seemed that everyone my parents knew back then had escaped to this country from that dark place ... after the war had ended," Peter explains. "But it took me until that summer to find out that there were things I hadn't been told, that there were secrets in my house."

Bock focuses with understated precision on the private moments of victory and defeat that make up the subjective history of a family: Ruby's fight against leukemia and her dream to succeed as an Olympic gymnast; a failed reunion between Peter's mother and the brother she hasn't seen since the end of the war; the deaths of the grandparents; a father and son's shared obsession with storms. Elliptical, nuanced, affirming, and sad, Olympia is a masterful examination of how a family embodies and survives its legacy. --Svenja Soldovieri


From Kirkus Reviews
The allure of the past and its power to deform one's life are at the heart of this lyrical and often surprising first novel. ``We believed we were a gifted family,'' narrator Peter explains. ``We were Olympians.'' His grandparents had both been members of Germany's 1936 Olympic team. Their glory, though, cant be recaptured. Peter's father has failed, having made it to the Olympics for Canada, where the family has resettled after the war, but being unable to bring home a medal. And Ruby, Peter's younger sister, a promising gymnast who seems a likely candidate for the Olympic team, dies of leukemia. In a series of interrelated stories, Bock traces the ways in which one family's efforts to regain the glory and the hazy romanticism of the past repeatedly disrupt the present. His grandparents decide to renew their marriage vows on a boat in the middle of a Canadian lake, but the romantic gesture turns to tragedy when his grandmother drowns. In another episode, Peter, who has set out to break the record for continuous hours spent floating in water, is himself almost drowned when heavy rains set in motion a flood that sweeps him out of the small municipal pool in which hes been determinedly floating. Bock brings his various themes together in a climactic episode in which a now grown Peter, living in a small Spanish town, is visited by his parents, who have decided that they too want to renew their marriage vows on water. The event goes wonderfully awry when the boat on which the ceremony is being held goes aground: the lake its been launched on is being drained by the authorities, and as the water recedes, it reveals a ruined town hidden for decades under the lake. The inescapable presence of the past is thus caught in a lovely metaphor, and Peter's liberation from his own obsession with the past, when it comes, is believable and moving. An impressive, energetic, and original debut. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Drawing on imaginary outtakes from Riefenstahl's infamous film of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, Dennis Bock weaves together the lives of a family living in the shadow of history.

Olympia is the story of post-war German immigrants, as told by their son Peter, born in the New World and raised in the sixties and seventies.

Though great figures and events of mid-century touch the lives of this remarkable family, it is the private histories, the grand failings and small triumphs of Peter's family that remain etched in the reader's imagination. From Ruby's struggle to rise above her leukemia and her father's love of severe weather and killing tornadoes, to the saint who witnesses a miracle at the bottom of a drowned Spanish village.

Set against the backdrop of some of the most significant Olympic moments of our times--the Nazis' stylish and sinister glorification of the Berlin Olympics and the 1972 Munich hostage--taking in which 11 Israelis were murdered--Olympia offers a bold and refreshing perspective on the tragic relationship between Germans and Jews in this century.

Bock writes with insight and clarity in a breath-taking, beautiful prose that signals the debut of a brilliant new talent.



From the Publisher
"Dennis Bock's Olympia moves us through sky and water, and delivers us whole into the stong hearts of a family worth knowing. The lines fall beautifully to pain, to mercy. This is bracing fiction."
-Michael Helm, author of The Projectionist"In these stories about an extended family damaged by war, immigration and death, the narrator learns that a decent life demands not only survival but accomplishment. He discovers the things that make human accomplishment possible--endurance through the rough stuff and a profound loving loyalty."
-Bonnie Burnard, author of Casino and Other Stories

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Peter's grandparents saw Jesse Owens win gold in Berlin; later they saw Hitler rise from his seat and leave the stadium without shaking the athlete's hand. When Peter's sister Ruby was eight, she saw Olga Korbut on television, doing her back flips and reaching for the ceiling in the Munich Olympics. She took up the challenge and became one of Canada's most promising gymnasts, with dreams of competing in Moscow. That was before she got sick - dangerously sick - and the family started needing a miracle in earnest. Through Peter's eyes we view this singular family: the Bavarian war-damaged uncles who are trapped in the past and the Olympians striving to evolve into something new for the future.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Dramatic events on water and during storms contrast with quiet, understated moments of interpersonal revelation in these seven interlinked stories chronicling three generations of a family cut adrift from their home and heritage. Narrator Peter chronicles the first meeting of his grandparents, both members of the German contingent at the 1936 Berlin Olympiad (his grandmother was a champion diver; his grandfather, a sailor). Peters family now lives in Canada, but his father sailed at the Rome Olympics. His younger sister, Ruby, is an aspiring gymnast, and all of them grapple to find their place in the family and in history. Peters own story includes his boyhood in Canada, a family trip to Germany and his eventual resettling in Spain. The opening narrative is paradigmatic of the familys struggles and of the bizarre events that mark them: Peters grandparents set out to renew their wedding vows on a raft in the middle of the lake, but his grandmother drowns in a freak accident. Years later his parents will recreate this ritual in Spain, where the lake suddenly empties when a dam is opened. Peter himself at one point attempts to break the record for the dead mans float, lying face down in a swimming pool, when a massive storm floods the town and sweeps him out of the pool. His father, a sailboat designer, is fascinated by storms to the point of obsession and becomes an amateur tornado chaser, perhaps hoping to hop aboard one someday. And Ruby, as she toils to become the next Olga Korbut, is stricken with leukemia and battles through a series of remissions and relapses. A strong sense of family bonds and an unspoken sadness pervade this work, as first novelist Bock looks lyrically at the past. The thematic use of water and air and a mystical tone finally become ponderous, but taken individually, these stories are subtle, gracefully constructed and rich in thoughts and images. (May)

Kirkus Reviews

The allure of the past and its power to deform one's life are at the heart of this lyrical and often surprising first novel. "We believed we were a gifted family," narrator Peter explains. "We were Olympians." His grandparents had both been members of Germany's 1936 Olympic team. Their glory, though, can't be recaptured. Peter's father has failed, having made it to the Olympics for Canada, where the family has resettled after the war, but being unable to bring home a medal. And Ruby, Peter's younger sister, a promising gymnast who seems a likely candidate for the Olympic team, dies of leukemia. In a series of interrelated stories, Bock traces the ways in which one family's efforts to regain the glory and the hazy romanticism of the past repeatedly disrupt the present. His grandparents decide to renew their marriage vows on a boat in the middle of a Canadian lake, but the romantic gesture turns to tragedy when his grandmother drowns. In another episode, Peter, who has set out to break the record for continuous hours spent floating in water, is himself almost drowned when heavy rains set in motion a flood that sweeps him out of the small municipal pool in which he's been determinedly floating. Bock brings his various themes together in a climactic episode in which a now grown Peter, living in a small Spanish town, is visited by his parents, who have decided that they too want to renew their marriage vows on water. The event goes wonderfully awry when the boat on which the ceremony is being held goes aground: the lake it's been launched on is being drained by the authorities, and as the water recedes, it reveals a ruined town hidden for decades under the lake. The inescapable presenceof the past is thus caught in a lovely metaphor, and Peter's liberation from his own obsession with the past, when it comes, is believable and moving. An impressive, energetic, and original debut.