I have read many survivor's memoirs, and while I understand that this is a novelized compilation of many stories, I am very disappointed in it overall. I am put off by the language used in the novel, which has affected my enjoyment while reading it. Of all the Armenians I know, both friends and relatives, none use this kind of language (swearing and detailed sexual references). I can only suggest that it is the Armenians who were raised in Turkey after the genocide, who were without benefit of Christian upbringing and had only Moslem influence, who may have been this way. Compared to the Armenians I know, it is very BASE language.

This is one of those rare books that you can not put down once you start. It is a very realistic book based on the horrors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide commited by the Turks. The writing is unmatched and the content captivating.

Though genocide is the most horrific act humans commit against each other, forgetting genocide is the most grievous act future generations could commit against its victims. As the Nazis were about to undertake the complete annihilation of European Jewry, the existing quip, "Who remembers the Armenians?," served to assuage any anxiety about the historical responsibilities of the perpetrators. Oblivion assists genocidal murderers; they despise memory, for remembrance sanctifies victims and reminds us of the desperate pain and transcendant suffering those victims experienced during the process of their effacement from the world.

Thus Micheline Aharonian Marcom's exquisite "Three Apples Fell from Heaven" is a novel used as historical vengeance. It not only chronicles the Ottoman Turks frighteningly successful attempted genocide of her Armenian ancestors; the novel emereges as a full-blown triumph of memory, family and culture. Redolent with a sensory array of violence (ranging from the sexual to the excremental), "Three Apples" puts faces on victims, perpetrators and bystanders. The former becomes tangible; Armenians have names, faces, families, foods, and language. The Turks not only set out to murder people, but to eradicate centuries of historical co-existence. Reading this harrowing, segmented novel will remind readers how precious and tenuous multiculturalism is and how hard members of a diverse society must work to maintain not only tolerance, but dignity and mutuality.

"Three Apples" is not an easy novel to read. Written in abrupt chapters (some of which are no longer than one page) and swirling in time, the novel relies on its characters, who become living symbols of degradation, despair, and survival. In places, central characters observe the disintegration of others and lament their own powerlessness to oppose humiliation. Sargis, a sensitive poet sequestered in women's clothes in his mother's closet, presents a terrifying description of an honored professor's degradation and descent into madness after being jailed and tortured. Sargis' subsequent existential rumination on the nature of evil is more than mere academic wonderings. As to what provokes evil, Sargis asks, "Does it live in all of us, regardless of blood or kin, like a viper waiting in the hollow of a fir tree? Should we step lightly around the perimeter of every fir tree? Do we carry hollows, and in them this thing, expectant?" Despite his obsession with bodily orifices, Sargis arouses our most profound sympathy; his demise hurts deeply.

When Ms. Marcom describes the death of infants on forced marches and involuntary exile, she underscores the uncounted number of absolutely defenseless Armenians who perished in brutal exodus. Western indifference resonates with quiet ugliness through the dispatches of American consul Leslie Davis. This effete functionary writes painfully accurate accounts of mass deportations and murder but easily interrupts his official responsibilities whenever a game of bridge beckons. His awareness and lack of response symbolizes the facade of neutrality and feigned concern. His conscience, which compels written recounting, is mute, ultimately false.

Ever present in this novel is Ms. Marcom's need to honor her heritage and family. Her maternal grandmother, a rare survivor, is the source of the novel and her mother provides inspiration. Writing "Three Apples" serves as an act of hope as well as anger. By trusting readers with memory, the author wisely reminds us that the living have enormous responsibilities to the past. As we read and become repulsed by the plight of the Armenians, we must also gain our courage to remember the martyrs in our daily lives. It is for the living to combat the evils that produce the impulse for genocide. Michelene Aharonian Marcom not only honors her family; she bestows hope for the human possibility that good may overcome evil.