Transportive historical fiction offering clear and timely wisdom about the present, The Weight of Loyalty by Mike H. Mizrahi is an epic World War II tale of survival, trust, and the resilience of humanity in the face of destruction.
Oliver Graham is a hard-drinking and troubled sailor aboard a British submarine that strikes a mine and sinks to the bottom of the Ionian Sea, leaving him as the sole survivor. Defying death time and time again, Oliver is rescued by a dolphin and brought to the shores of Kefalonia, a Greek island currently under the control of Mussolini and the Axis Powers. Natalía Giannatos is a young and steel-willed community leader on the island, but also a striking beauty that has caught the eye of a high-ranking Italian colonel, in addition to the beached British mariner. Oliver and Natalía make for a compelling pair of protagonists at the center of this detailed historical drama – an Allied soldier submerged in a sea of loneliness and a fearless survivor whose life has already been shattered by Nazi sympathizers.
The novel is penned with deep reverence for the cultural history of Kefalonia, with the rich island landscape becoming a vital character within the narrative. Oliver’s arrival on the island marks an existential turning point for its citizens, as they must decide what side of history they will stand on, and interrogate their sense of morality. The decision to help the Brit escape the island is compelling, but so is Oliver’s growing desire to stay and fight the war on an unexpected front. Natalia’s simmering rage for the occupying forces in her home makes her a powerhouse on the page, while the rebellious rhetoric and philosophical musings of her internal monologue demonstrate the depth and breadth of her fierce beliefs.
The slow-burning romantic dynamic of these two characters adds through-lines of drama, but refreshingly, not an overly romantic focal point of the book. The alternating perspectives of Natalía and Oliver keep the pace of the storytelling high, even with the patient nature of the prose, giving readers ample time to intimately understand their thought processes and nuanced personalities.
The other characters that pepper this novel are inspirational, but also not unrealistically heroic; they are ordinary people forced into extraordinary circumstances, making them even more relatable and memorable, given our current geopolitical predicaments. The vivid market scenes of Natalia and other townsfolk suffering the harassment or oppression of fascist soldiers, biting their tongues and stoking their fires of resistance, feel particularly poignant in a contemporary context. The meticulous depiction of living under occupation, particularly the suspicion, paranoia, and uncertainty of where your neighbors’ loyalties lie, reads like an ominous foretelling, as well as an incisive portrait of the past; Mizrahi clearly understands that this is not a time to mince words or capitulate in one’s commentary.
On a qualitative level, some of the meaning behind the prose is laid out too directly, with the protagonists’ stream of thought feeling overly transparent, but most of the author’s choices make for savvy and engaging storytelling. Neatly polished to an expert standard, this multilayered piece of historical fiction is an exceptional stand-out among wartime dramas.
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