The Sojourn

A story that celebrates, in its stripped down but resonant fashion, the flow between creation and destruction we all call life.

— Dayton Literary Peace Prize judges’ citation

A novel of uncommon lyricism and moral ambiguity that balances the spare with the expansive.

— Chautauqua Prize committee citation

The Sojourn is a beautifully told story of a young man’s coming of age in World War I Austria. It is quiet, serene, and filled with humanity, even while recounting scenes of violence and war.

— Miami-Dade Public Library System, Dublin Literary Award Longlist citation

[An] exquisite first novel. . . . Full of violence and beauty, Krivak shares a unique story about a boy becoming a man during a tragic period in world history.

— Sherri Gallentine, Vroman’s Bookstore, Indie Next List citation

With unforced elegance, this novel renders the journey of a young man who leaves his impoverished shepherd’s life behind for the World War I killing fields of Europe.

— Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers committee citation

A gripping and harrowing war story that has the feel of a classic.

— NPR “Year’s Top Book Club Picks” citation

Splendid. . . . A novel for anyone who has a sharp eye and ear for life.

— NPR All Things Considered

[A] powerful, assured first novel. . . . If the early pages of The Sojourn sometimes recall Cormac McCarthy (especially The Crossing), the heart of the book is a harrowing portrait of men at war, as powerful as Ernst Junger’s classic Storm of Steel and Isaac Babel’s brutally poetic Red Cavalry stories.

— Washington Post

A beautiful tale of persistence and dogged survival.

— Los Angeles Times

A classic of war. . . . Beautifully plotted, as rapt and understated as a hymn.

— Plain Dealer

Captivating, thoughtful. . . . A poignant reminder of how humanity was so greatly affected by what was once called the war to end all wars.

— Star Tribune

[The Sojourn] deserves to be placed on the same shelf as Remarque, Hemingway and Heller. . . . Krivak has written an anti-war novel with all the heat of a just-fired artillery gun.

— Barnes and Noble Review/Christian Science Monitor

A fairly short, brisk story that covers a lot of ground. . . . Beautifully written and uplifting even through all the tragedy.

— Press-Telegram

Faith—hope for the future, the conversion of tragedy into meaning—lurks throughout The Sojourn’s lush and lyrical prose.

— Image

Unsentimental yet elegant. . . . With ease, [The Sojourn] joins the ranks of other significant works of fiction portraying World War I.

— Library Journal (starred review)

Assured, meditative. . . . Krivak has his own voice, given to lyrical observations on the nature of human existence.

— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Charged with emotion and longing . . . this lean, resonant debut is an undeniably powerful accomplishment.

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Beautiful. . . . Deftly wrought. . . . Krivak studied all the Great War novels before writing, and the result is a debut novel at home amongst those classics. Highly recommended.

— Historical Novels Review (Editors’ Choice review)

The prose echoes Faulkner, and Krivak shows us the little-known Italian front of WWI in fascinating episodes.

— Booklist

Rendered in spare, elegant prose, yet rich in authentic detail. . . . [The Sojourn] stands with the most memorable stories about World War I.

— Foreword Reviews

The Sojourn is a fiercely wrought novel, populated by characters who lead harsh, even brutal lives, which Krivak renders with impressive restraint, devoid of embellishment or sentimentality. And yet—almost despite such a stoic prose style—his sentences accrue and swell and ultimately break over a reader like water: they are that supple and bracing and shining.

— Leah Hager Cohen, author of The Grief of Others and Strangers and Cousins

The Sojourn is a work of uncommon strength by a writer of rare and powerful elegance about a war, now lost to living memory, that echoes in headlines of international strife to this day.

— Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow and The Women of the Copper County

Intimate and keenly observed, [The Sojourn] is a war story, love story, and coming of age novel all rolled into one. I thought of Lermontov and Stendhal, Joseph Roth and Cormac McCarthy as I read. But make no mistake. Krivak’s voice and sense of drama are entirely his own.

— Sebastian Smee, Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic