|
Amazon.com
By Kate Bernhardt
I enjoyed this historical fiction book which illuminates a turn of the century period (1800s - 1900s) set in Minnesota. James Kruger cleverly weaves together the stories of several people, seemingly on different trajectories, but ultimately connected. While following the life journey of one young man, the reader enjoys an up-front-and-personal immersion into this fascinating era including the birth of the popular game of baseball and the rise of charismatic Theodore Roosevelt.
Amazon.com
By S. Hoge, "An engaging and personal view of historical events"
One of those historical novels that is readable and intriguing in its own right above and beyond the specific historical events it chronicles.
I for one am more attracted to those novels in which an important historical figure—in this case Teddy Roosevelt—is actually a peripheral character in the story of a fictional protagonist—here, Jack Pennington, whose persona and life story are based, I gather, on one of the author's direct ancestors.
The treatment of TR as an important but lightly-sketched character lends a personal and believable "I was there" point of view to the reader's perspective of an otherwise vast sweep of history.
The portrayal of Pennington's life as a midwestern boy and the author's renditions of the "frontier" towns of 19th cent Minnesota had me perusing Google Maps trying to figure out where all these stories actually took place.
This was a great beach read last summer and I think it would be a great book to curl up with over the holidays. Covering as it does TR's early career it would make a fine companion volume to flesh out Morris' Colonel Roosevelt.
Can't wait for the sequel!
Amazon.com
By Kathleen Jefferies "JKat" - Great Read!
James Kruger's Pennington's Patrimony is a totally engaging historical novel filled with mystery, intrigue, passion, and compassion throughout. I read it on vacation and could hardly put it down. The character development (and there are plenty of colorful "characters") is excellent and so wonderfully woven into the story that I felt I was experiencing life in that era. I hope the author writes a sequel to this book so I can find out what happens in the futures of those I've come to know in Pennington's Patrimony. I highly recommend Pennington's Patrimony. I would love to see a movie based on this historic novel - or maybe a TV mini-series.
Santa Cruz Sentinel
By Kirsten Fairchilds
APTOS—For 42 years, James Irwin Kruger worked at newspapers.
After starting off as a teenaged "copy boy," Kruger logged countless hours as a night editor, a copy desk editor, a wire editor and even as city editor of the Santa Cruz Sentinel from 1963 to 1973.
But it wasn't until his retirement at the age of 62 that Kruger finally was able to fulfill his boyhood dream—to write.
Since taking early retirement from the San Jose Mercury News in 1992, Kruger has self-published seven novels, including his latest, "Pennington's Patrimony," an historical novel that interlaces fiction with the factual life of the protagonist's hero, Theodore Roosevelt.
"I always wanted to write," said Kruger, who will turn 80 in November. "As it turned out, I spent 42 years as an editor. But I couldn't have spent more than a day or two at the most actually writing on the job. It was all rewriting and editing.
"Finally having a chance to write fiction was a great relief from facts, facts, facts—checking all your facts—before publishing," Kruger continued. "With writing fiction, you're free as a bird. It's a lot of fun."
A longtime Santa Cruz County resident, Kruger recently returned to the area with his wife Carolyn after spending four years in Boulder, Colo. The two are settling back into their Aptos home with an idea for an eighth novel germinating in what Kruger calls his "vivid imagination."
Kruger credits his time reading international wire stories in helping him develop his first three novels: "Stranger in the Mirror," "The Secret Files of Moshe Shomeir" and "Tiger Lily." Published in 2002, the three books comprise an action-adventure series that follows an ex-military officer called upon by the CIA for covert assignments during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Kruger next used Santa Cruz as a backdrop for a murder mystery, "Beach Street." He followed with "The Bachelor Portraits," set in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake, and "Welcome are Lands," set in his native Minnesota in the late 1800s.
As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, Kruger began working as a copy clerk at the Minneapolis Tribune now the Star Tribune before joining the now-defunct San Francisco News as a night editor in 1957.
Kruger moved to Santa Cruz to commute as a copy desk editor at the San Jose News before its merger with the San Jose Mercury in 1961.
He then accepted a position as wire editor at the Sentinel in 1963, but said that former editor Gordon "Scotchie" Sinclair sat him down shortly after his arrival and told him he would be the city editor instead.
"Jim is the best editor I ever worked for," said Bruce McPherson, the former California secretary of state who began his reporting career at the Sentinel on the Mid-County beat in 1967 under Kruger's tutelage. "Jim was professional in every sense of the word. He respected the profession so much. It was critical that you always got it right, not get your opinions into a story."
Kruger left in 1973 to become the assistant wire editor at the San Jose Mercury News—a position he held when the paper's staff received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for journalism for its coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
"Boy, Jim was a newspaper person's newspaper person," said McPherson, who became city editor upon Kruger's departure from the Sentinel, then owned by the McPherson Family. "He was bright, and what stamina he had. Who wouldn't have stamina to write seven novels? What a top-notch, classy guy."
James Kruger, Author of Pennington's Patrimony, Welcome Are Lands, Stranger in the Mirror, The Secret Files of Moshe Shomeir, Tiger Lily, The Bachelor Portraits, and Beach Street. James Kruger, Author of Pennington's Patrimony, Welcome Are Lands, Stranger in the Mirror, The Secret Files of Moshe Shomier, Tiger Lily, The Bachelor Portraits, and Beach Street.
Top of Page
Home
Books
Order Books
Author Bio
Reviews
Appearances
Media
Blog
Contact
© 2002-2009 by James Irwin Kruger. All Rights Reserved.
Website design by Annie Hughes for Earthshine Design.
|
