The Faithful Spy

I will be honest, I didn't know very much about Dietrich Bonhoeffer before reading this, and I'd been a little bit suspicious of venerating a Christian pastor as a hero of the German resistance? But his story was really inspiring and really explicitly resonant with right now (which Hendrix mentions is intentional, in his afterword). It was especially interesting to read about Bonhoeffer traveling to the US in the 20s and visiting a black church, where he learned about how the church can fight for social justice. This is a really moving, compelling story that feels incredibly fresh and contemporary. The art is so engaging and the format is great for including little sidebars or definitions. Hendrix states that his goal with this is not to be the end-all, be-all biography of Bonhoeffer (though his bibliography suggests other books for those who want more information) but rather to highlight recurring themes in his life and the resistance to Hitler.

Really an excellent use of the medium all around.

Short Review: I have read a lot on Bonhoeffer previously. So I was not coming into the book blind. I think this was a good overview and it avoided a lot of pitfalls around Bonhoeffer. I do think that it hinted at too large a role for Bonhoeffer in a couple places where Bonhoeffer was a more peripheral figure, but for the most part the history is good.

I also liked the art, as with any graphic novel plays a very important role.

Honestly, I think this is probably the best presentation about how Hitler rose to power of any of the book on Bonhoeffer that I have read. There is a lot of misinformation there and many of the Bonhoeffer books do not spend a lot of time on the German context around Bonhoeffer. This book spent at least a third of the space giving context to Bonhoeffer, which I think was very helpful.



My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/faithful-spy/