The story follows characters from Germany, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, who become linked by events from just before the construction of the Berlin wall in 1961 to that wall’s demise in 1989. Once again, the major characters are the children of the characters who were seen in the first two novels. The novel covers a range of world events during the period, often from multiple points of view. These include the civil rights movement in the US, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the Solidarity movement in Poland. The novel also covers a range of personal events. Others tour the world as reporters or aides to major political figures. Characters in the US work to overcome prejudice and discrimination and to win the Cold War. Characters in East Berlin and Moscow work, subtly at first and then more overtly, to bring about the start of the fall of Communism. And a family split apart by the construction of the Berlin wall is eventually re-united the night that wall comes down. Unlike the first two volumes, which gave considerable attention to British politics and charted the rise of the British Labor Party to prominence, culminating with the party's victory under Clement Attlee in 1945, this subject is nearly absent from the present volume. In the course of the book's plot, most British characters move to the United States and become involved in its politics, rather than the British ones. For example, the 1979 elections victory of Margaret Thatcher gets no reference at all in the book, though it happened in the period covered by it.
Characters
Here are the principal Point-of-view characters around which the plot revolves:
George Jakes, a young African AmericanHarvard graduated lawyer working in Robert Kennedy's Attorney General Office during the JFK administration. He is the illegitimate son of Jackie Jakes and Senator Grigori "Greg" Peshkov.
Rebecca Hoffman, an East German teacher in East Berlin, the adopted daughter of Carla von Ulrich and her husband Werner Franck. Originally married to Hans Hoffman, she discovers he is a Stasi agent. Soon after the Berlin Wall is erected, she flees to the west with another school teacher, Bernd Held, whom she marries later on.
Walli Franck, Rebecca's musical younger brother who also crosses the Berlin Wall to West Germany to become an international pop star. He is forced to leave behind his pregnant girlfriend Karolin. Karolin is then taken in by the Franck/Von Ulrich family.
Lili Franck, Rebecca and Walli's youngest sister whose way of protesting against the Communist government of East Germany is in the form of singing subversive songs.
Dave Williams, son of Lloyd Williams and Daisy Peshkov and grandson of Earl Fitzherbert; first cousin of George and second cousin of Walli, a dyslexic young musician who become an international pop star and music producer. He and Walli become the core of the band "Plum Nellie". He falls in love with Cameron's younger sister, Ursula "Beep" Dewar.
Dmitri Dvorkin, a young apparatchik in USSR working for Nikita Khrushchev, and responsible for organizing parts of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although he believes in Communism, he is disgusted with the inefficient and conservative leadership of the Soviet bureaucracy, especially after Khrushchev is deposed, and is constantly on the search for a reformist leader - eventually involved in helping Gorbachev rise to power.
Tanya Dvorkin, Dmitri's twin sister, a journalist, who is a star reporter for the official TASS news agency, strictly keeping to the official party line - while secretly actively writing and disseminating outright subversive articles against the Soviet regime and smuggling banned writings to be published in the West - a very dangerous double which could lead to dire consequences if discovered.
Cameron Dewar, a conservative student at Berkeley who joins the Nixon administration, and assists in Nixon's use of illegal espionage techniques. He later becomes a CIA agent stationed in Poland.
Jasper Murray, the son of Daisy's German-Scottish friend Eva Murray; an investigative journalist, he comes to America to report on the Civil Rights Movement but soon becomes pulled into the Vietnam War when he is drafted and gets involved in outright War Crimes committed by US troops. Dave's older sister Evie initially has a crush on him.
Genre and style
As a series of historical novels, the whole Century Trilogy revolves around an episodic treatment of history, highlighting the most significant events of the 20th century by immersing characters in those events. In doing so, Follett covers almost all of the major historical events between 1961 and 2008, the termination of the novel. Steve Novak of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the novel as "an extremely extensive refresher course . This isn’t just a few snapshots of history — this is a miniseries." Novak points to Follett's deliberate choices about representing the past that make the treatment of history successful; Novak quoting an interview in which Follett said "The research and effort at authenticity is more difficult when you’re writing about history that is within living memory." Despite this exhaustive treatment of history, most reviewers noted the quality of the reading experience. Novak describes the novel as better than a history book, by thrusting the reader into the "immediacy of the events described". The Historical Novel Society reviewer Viviane Crystal describes this skilled character development as what saves the novel from being "a skimming of the surface of history" is that the "set of characters live and engage in all these events over the years, with romance, terror, frustration, determination, fury and celebration." As Steve Donoghue of Open Letters Monthly notes, however, this approach to the historical novel follows a conceit commonly used in historical fiction, saying its "oldest gimmick in the historical fiction bag of tricks, the eyewitness-to-history trick in which the author invents a character or cast of characters who just happen to be in the room when the great and the mighty eat, fornicate, and make the decisions that change the course of nations."
Critical reception
Many critics focused on the tension between the novel's length and deep dive into history and the novel's compelling treatment of that history. Critic Steve Novak for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that "Reading any 1,100-page book is a chore, but if you stay with “Edge of Eternity,” Mr. Follett’s characters just might grow on you." Publisher's Weekly described the novel as the "mesmerizing final installment is an exhaustive but rewarding reading experience dense in thematic heft, yet flowing with spicy, expertly paced melodrama, character-rich exploits, familial histrionics, and international intrigue."
