The Conium Review Category:  Action/Thriller Publisher: Broken Bird Press ISBN-10:  0982595654 Type: Fiction Pages: 156 Copyright: Feb 15, 2013 ISBN-13: 9780982595657 It’s 1951, and Czeslaw Wierzbicki is on the lookout for a hero after losing his father in WWII. With his uncle who can’t seem to hold a job for more than a few months, Czeslaw sets out on a life-changing journey that takes him from Detroit to Edinburgh, in hopes of meeting Wojtek, the legendary Polish soldier bear. Excerpt Standing up from his chair, he looked in the direction of the Dodge plant, then leaned backward from his heels, stretching. “It was a bad time, Czeslaw. No fun to be had anywhere. When Piotr and your father bought the bear from the Persian boy, we all saw a chance for a bit of relief. He was only a cub then.” When he stopped stretching, my uncle began pacing around the roof, slowly, following its perimeter like a sentry on guard duty, although a sentry with his hands in his pockets. “By the time the sergeant found out we had him, we’d grown quite attached to Wojtek. Of course the sergeant could see this. He liked how Wojtek had improved our morale. We decided to approach Major Chelminski and suggest Wojtek become the company mascot.” My uncle stopped near the corner of the roof closest to the Dodge plant. From where I sat, I couldn’t actually see the factory but I knew what he was looking at: a hulking gray fortress topped with tall black smokestacks, as if the largest freight ship in the history of the world had sailed down the St. Lawrence Seaway, crossed Lake Ontario then Lake Erie, then cruised up the Detroit River and gone out of control, smashing into the bank and juggernauting forward, block after city block, until it finally stopped at the border of Detroit and Hamtramck. Billowing from its stacks, smoke darker than the night sky created clouds like moon shadows, and in certain windows lights blazed as welders welded, riveters riveted, and on the lower levels foundry workers poured hot molten metals into moulds for axles and engine parts. During the war the plant had manufactured military vehicles. My uncle, when he worked there, had spent his nights sweating in the foundry. “The major agreed immediately,” my uncle said, his eyes still on the factory. “He knew that the difference between victory and defeat is often slim. Everyone was looking for an edge. In his mind, Wojtek gave us one. Caring for him, playing with him brought up the same emotions we felt for the people we held dear. Love. Compassion. A desire to nurture and protect.” Uncle Izzy turned to look at me. “Your father couldn’t share his affection with you, so he made do with Wojtek. He was so close to the bear because he wanted to be close to you and your mother, even though he couldn’t be. That was one reason at least.” My uncle returned to his chair and sat down. The wood groaned under his weight. “And Wojtek loved us back,” he said. “I don’t know what his life was like before he met us, but he was certainly grateful for our attention. You couldn’t help but see it.” He looked at me then. “Does that answer your question?” I told him it did. “He reminded us of Poland,” Uncle Izzy went on, “before the Nazis and Stalin. He made us happy and the major could see that. So he added Wojtek’s name to the roll of the Second Transport Company, and Wojtek officially became the hairiest of Allies.” “What rank?” “Lance-mascot, Second Transport Company, Polish Army Service Corps.” In the darkness I doubt if my uncle could see me frown. Just my silence though, broken finally by the rumble of a car passing by on Ellery Street, was enough for him to amend his claim. “Actually Wojtek had no rank. Soldier bear we called him.” He turned to look down at me. “And that’s the truth, Czeslaw. You wouldn’t think a group of men intent on the bloody annihilation of their fellow human beings could be capable of such enlightened thinking—in regard to keeping Wojtek I mean.” With his final words his voice trailed off, as if he were speaking only for his own benefit, annunciating his thoughts to see if he really agreed with them. “Maybe that’s why I miss it.” He looked at the Dodge plant again. “Pretty sad, isn’t it, a man who misses the Second World War?” Reaching down, he scooped up a handful of roof gravel. “I have dreams of those days, and when I wake up I’m happy. Not like that damn place,” he said, motioning with his head in the direction of the factory. Then he flung the stones, as if they might hit the Dodge plant. Of course none of them made it; the factory was blocks away. Instead I heard them rattle off the shingles of the Piotrowski’s garage, some sounding sharper and more resonant when they collided with the Piotrowski’s Buick. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “It’s time for the fights.” He referred to the Friday Night Fights, which we watched every week with Jozef and his parents—not the fights between Jozef ’s parents, which were less regular and not as entertaining. Since the Dudeks owned one of only three televisions on our block, all differences were put aside for the time it took the boxers to try to hammer one another into submission, punctuated by the earliest televised commercials for Stroh’s beer, Gillette blue blades, and the cigars of R.G. Dun. I still remember who won that night: Sugar Ray Robinson in a TKO.

Small Press Review by Marc Schuster
Let me say right off the bat that I loved readingBear Season. It’s the story of a young first-generation Polish-American boy named Chester who’s struggling to grow up without a father in 1950s Detroit. The only male role model he has is an alcoholic uncle who regales him with tales of the preternaturally talented bear who served with his unit a decade earlier in World War II. Teetering on the verge of disbelief in the bear and the mythology surrounding it, Chester embarks on a road trip with his uncle in an effort to help him make peace with his painful, war-torn past. What follows is a heartfelt tale that works both as a grail quest and a coming of age story highlighting the power of storytelling and exploring the relationship between the past and the ever-moving present.

Throughout the novel, author Bernie Hafeli demonstrates both a strong instinct for storytelling and a keen understanding of the human heart. His eleven-year-old protagonist offers the perfect balance of innocence and experience — embarrassed yet protective as he is with respect to his Polish heritage and his uncle’s outlandish tales, torn as he is between wishing to see the world and longing for the comforts of home, and ambivalent as he is about lying to his mother to protect his drunken uncle from her unrelenting distrust. The world from Chester’s perspective is full of contradictions, and much of the narrative explores the ways in which the young protagonist learns how to deal with them on his way to adulthood. Life, it turns out, rarely presents cut-and-dried answers to any of our questions, so the best we can do is keep moving forward with the stories that allow us to make sense of the chaos.

Given its title and the centrality of a bear to the novel’s plot, it’s probably no surprise that Bear Season brought to mind the works of John Irving, whose own fascination with bears has made novels like Setting Free the Bears, Hotel New Hampshire, and Last Night in Twisted River (among others) so memorable. Additionally, the novel’s focus on young people of relatively recent Eastern European extraction brought to mind Daniel Torday’s The Sensualist, a gem from last year published by Nouvella Books. Yet Bernie Hafeli ultimately writes in a voice all his own — one, needless to say, that I hope to hear more from. All told, a moving, playful, and memorable novel.

For a sample of Bernie Hafeli’s work, check out his short story, “Don’t Ask,” at Ampersand Review!