The Price for Glory
M.N. Snitz
Classic Day Publishing (2021)
ISBN: 978-1598493153
Reviewed by Joan Kirschner for Reader Views (2/2025)
There are many books of historical fiction rooted in World War II and the Holocaust, and quite a number covering the Vietnam War. Many examine the events that led to those wars and explore their consequences. M.N. Snitz’s “The Price for Glory” is an addition to titles covering those key twentieth century events.
This lengthy novel, of 500-plus pages, centers predominantly around Abraham Steinermann, a German Jew of humble origin, but with a grandiose sense of ambition, who rose to become a promising young banker in Stuttgart until the Nazis arrested him and sent him to Auschwitz. The main narrative follows him through his harrowing and character-building experiences during the war years, his successful later life and accomplishments in business and governmental service in the United States, and then an unexpected endeavor in post-war Vietnam.
As represented by the cover design, the Statue of Liberty is a symbol and inspiration for Abraham, from his arrival in New York and throughout his later life. It will play a role throughout the book.
Other major arcs in the story concern his wife, Merriam, a beautiful Hungarian Jewish woman who struggles with her own set of painful war-time memories, and their son, Jack, who serves as a Marine officer in the Vietnam War and suffers post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as he rejoins civilian life.
There are other lesser, but still complex, secondary story lines that involve Abraham’s friends and employers, and his relationships with government figures, plus Merriam’s family and romantic history, and then Jack’s. In short, there is a lot for the reader to follow and absorb.
The novel started strong, with a unique historical preface, but about midway through, the wealth of detail, the multiple major and minor story lines, and formality of the language, particularly the dialogue between the characters, and their inner thoughts, caused it to bog down. Further editing would have tightened the book and improved the reading experience.
When the story turned to Jack’s time in Vietnam, his romantic life, and treatment for his war trauma, the book seemed almost to break into at multiple parts. It might have worked better as separate installments: a book featuring Abraham, one focusing on Jack, and yet another from Merriam’s perspective. Each of their stories merited their own telling.
It was clear in the reading that all three of these major characters were suffering from what we now call PTSD, resulting from their various wartime ordeals, but the focus was on Jack’s as a Vietnam veteran. The author provides a postscript that offers some background on this problem particularly as it results from military experience, a condition which as we all know now is sadly very common.
This is a novel for adult readers with an interest in the major historical events of the twentieth century. It delves deeply into the experience of European Jews during World War II and as post-war refugees in the United States. It is highly descriptive, and nearly cinematic in conveying many of the horrors of the concentration camps, and of the obstacles that the former inmates and others experienced as they tried to make a new life. It also delves deeply into the psyches of the children of Holocaust survivors, and of Vietnam-era American soldiers. In Abraham’s later visits to Vietnam, we also get some idea of the post-war society that was evolving there in the 1980s. For readers with backgrounds that relate to these time periods, there is a sense of recognition and remembrance they will appreciate.