Kotkas langeb – An Eagle Falls is a story told through the saga of one family, about the fate of Estonia and about ordinary people caught up in the cogs of a great unpredictable machine. The so-called lost generations, who had to find their place in life after the war, in the new world, in which the hope that Estonia would ever be free was lost. They or their descendants became Estonians abroad, for whom Estonia turned into a vague unattainable dreamland.
At the end of the story, they are contrasted with the first generation of children who lived in Estonia, whose entire lives have been spent in the Soviet Union and the system it created. It is they who begin to seize responsible and authoritative positions. But what does this bring from the point of view of Estonia’s future?
In the novel An Eagle Falls, the journey that began in the first part of the series Hunt Metsas – The Wolf in the Woods (2018) and continues in the second part Karu Küüsis – The Bear’s Claw (2021) comes to a new point in the exiles’ narrative, in which Martin Allison Booth relates the experiences of his mother and grandfather in the unpredicatble world that followed the Second World War. In all three novels, the author has given new names to his family members and created a fictional background to the narrative. Despite this, many of the encounters depicted are based on actual events that he and his family experienced at the time.
Martin Allison Booth was born in 1954 in Great Britain. He writes in English, but is a child of an Estonian refugee. He relies heavily on his family’s story. Martin has worked for the BBC and ITV. As a former screenwriter with a vivid pen, he can effortlessly draw the reader into his world. By fusing facts and fantasy, he has created a fascinating combination in the story of a family amidst the challenges of war and exile.
