All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

by Tod Wodicka

Book Overview

Meet Burt Hecker: a mead-drinking, tunic-wearing medieval re-enactor from upstate New York. He prefers oat gruel to French fries because potatoes were unavailable in Europe before 1200 AD; and, at war... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375424733
• ISBN13: 9780375424731
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.7" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly Fascinating!

The uniqueness of the characters and plot of this book make it unique and intriguing, but Mr. Wodicka's prose made it impossible for me to put this book down unread. Born an orphan with a disfigured nose and raised by nuns, Burt's life is indeed tragic all the way around, since his wife dies, his two kids disown him, and he is an alcholic who lives, breathes, and re-enacts the middle ages every day by wearing a tunic and brewing his own home-brewed mead. There are plenty of funny situations mixed throughout the novel. I really loved this book and highly recommend it.

A Character for the Ages

Tod Wodicka is a remarkable young writer. His debut novel is funny, wise, deliriously tender-hearted and, in passages too numerous to mention here, beautiful enough to bring a tear to your eye. In Burt Hecker, Wodicka has given us a character for the ages (the Middle Ages and our own). Ignatius J. Reilly, Moses Herzog, Humbert Humbert, Mickey Sabbath, Vladimir Girshkin, and now Burt -- a.k.a. Eckbert Attquiet -- who takes his place among the great eccentrics of modern fiction in his grimy tunic and period sandals, his breath stinking of honey mead. He is most welcome. If you care at all about contemporary fiction, you'll want to know him, too. I loved this book.

Succeeds in marrying the offbeat with the commonplace

Kooky, quirky characters are fun to read. But they often fade away when the book ends unless there is a real solidity underneath any absurdity. It is not easy to write a character who is at once silly and dead serious, and even more difficult to place that character in a suitable tale. First-time novelist Tod Wodicka, however, has done just that. In the memorably titled ALL SHALL BE WELL; AND ALL SHALL BE WELL; AND ALL MANNER OF THINGS SHALL BE WELL, readers meet Burt Hecker, a widowed eccentric who lives as if it is 1105 and not 2008. Years ago Burt founded the Confraternity of Times Lost Regained, which allowed him not only to live out his medieval fantasies but to do so with like-minded people. His friends and family put up with his eccentricities, understanding them as harmless for the most part. Only his mother-in-law, the stern Lemko nationalist Anna Bibko, called it ridiculous. His daughter, June, rebelled through an interest in science fiction and geology, but Burt's sensitive son Tristan, a natural musician, joined his father in the world of medieval reenactment. However, since his wife's death from cancer two years ago, Burt has loosened his already-tenuous hold on reality. He can no longer maintain the family's Victorian bed and breakfast, spends his days dressed in dirty tunics drinking mead and is estranged from his two adult children. After absconding with his friend's car (which he did not know how to drive), he is sentenced to an anger management treatment. The group he ends up in is a women's medieval chant workshop led by the sympathetic Tivona Henry. Tivona takes the group to Germany for a conference on Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval mystic and composer to whom Burt relates on a deeply personal level. The trip to Europe provides an escape from the scene of his wife's death and the opportunity to track down Tristan, who, it turns out, is somewhere in Prague. Facing head-on Burt's depression and drinking problem as well as family secrets and dysfunction, the Heckers must decide if they can be a family again and what family really means. Wodicka's debut is original and highly readable but provides no easy answers. Readers will surely come to care for the egocentric and damaged Burt and his grieving family. Still, the author never promises that all shall be well for them. In this way, the book is at once inventive and realistic. This is a very confident first novel; the characters are complex, the story is rich and the settings are lively --- and all of it is written with a smart and graceful hand. ALL SHALL BE WELL succeeds in marrying the offbeat with the commonplace. Moving effortlessly between past and present, Wodicka tells the compelling story of a man at once both simple and quite complicated. While the details of Burt Hecker's life are unique, his tale --- of origins, destinations and the path between the two --- is universal. --- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

re-enacting a life

Burt Hecker is 66 years old and his two kids won't give him the time of day. Son moved to Europe. Daughter to California. Burt, a widower, has been left alone at his late wife's Victorian bed and breakfast in New York to drown his sorrows in home brewed honey wine. Burt has been a lousy father. Was he also a crappy husband? He can't remember. Too much pain and drink have dulled the edges of his memories. Tod Wodicka takes readers on an extended flashback to the events that brought Burt to this dismal place. Burt may not remember his own past because he is living in the imaginary past of the 13th century. He doesn't drive or consume foods or use products that did not exist 700 years ago. His excessive tippling has left him confused. Wodicka has written the story of Burt's resurrection as a person, a father, and a grieving spouse. 'T is a beautiful thing. An impressive debut!

A book must be the axe which destroys the frozen ocean within us." Franz Kafka

All Shall Be Well is an exceptionally brilliant, uniquely human and utterly enjoyable debut from author Tod Wodicka. Long after the last page has been read the words, images and rich characters accompany me like familiar shadows from which I seek no release. This is no small achievement in the midst of a literary landscape upon which altars are built in masses for the mediocre and in which the most precious gems often remain obscure, neglected and hidden. It was clever to cloak this intelligent, soul-filled book in such a quirky and fascinating tale. It is the story of Eckburt Attquiet (known in the mundane world as Burt Hecker) founder of a medieval reenactment society extraordinaire and master mead brewer whose penchant for living history and ability to blind out everything which does not figure into the life he has created precipitates the implosion of his family. It is a bittersweet tale of the reality of present intertwined with and redolent of a golden yesterday which was perceived as ideal for him alone. When a tragic stroke of fate removes the one person whose life and presence underpins and makes plausibel the structure of family, the hidden depths of dysfunction, resentment and sense of betrayal come unabated and relentlessly to the surface. This sends Burt on a journey to another continent which becomes the proverbial longest journey a man must take... "the eighteen inches from his head to his heart." The story is so unique and rich that to say more about the specific story line would not do it justice. The narrative is tightly woven. His writing style is well-rounded and mature allowing the colors and textures to be woven around the underlying structure while keeping the tension balanced and taut. Its movement is constant often taking unexpected turns while effortlessly navigating the changes in time, perspective and place without abandoning or leaving undeveloped a thread once begun. All of the characters (even minor ones) and the relationships between them are very well-developed, deep and as complex as life itself. Each one is a "real" person showing all of the pitfalls and graces, the uncompromising paradox of being human... our capacity to misjudge, to lose ourselves in our own perspectives and to follow an ineffable and elusive longing which remains ever just out of reach be it for an unattainable harmony or a place to belong. To have good hearts which in spite of (or more likely exactly due to) that manage to ruin everything in a simple, self-preoccupied blindness. His portrayal of the broad spectrum of Hildegard devotees from the lithe waves of the esoterica to the die-hard prophets of medieval medicine; from the self-righteous scorn of the academic medievalists to the standard bearers of traditional monasticism who try to hold the fort while distancing themselves (ever so gently) Leib und Seele from the projections and general brouhaha surrounding her cult, was concise and perceptive. His understanding of St. Hildegard's w