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THE LOST SISTERHOOD

Name: THE LOST SISTERHOOD
Author: Anne Fortier
ISBN: 978-0-345-53622-8

by Anne Fortier ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 11, 2014

Readers patient enough to soldier through to the payoff will not be disappointed.

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Fortier (Juliet, 2010, etc.) presents the intertwining stories of a young English philologist, tutored by her grandmother in the ways of Amazon warriors, and an Amazon queen of pre–Trojan War days.

Diana Morgan, a professor at Oxford, has been haunted by memories of her grandmother, whom her parents thought mentally unbalanced. All Diana has left of Granny is the old lady’s notebook—filled with indecipherable scribbles in an archaic alphabet—and the bronze, jackal-headed bracelet that Diana somehow has never been able to remove from her wrist. Lately, Diana has been similarly unable to resist researching rumors of an Amazon treasure somewhere in Turkey, which has put her in contact with some shady characters. Soon, Diana is trekking from the Algerian desert (where she found samples of Granny’s script in the ruins of an Amazon temple) to Crete (where she’s mugged while snooping in the famous labyrinth) to the putative site of the city of Troy itself. Accompanied by her best friend, Rebecca, and international man of mystery Nick (known to be involved with al-Aqrab, a quasi-terrorist organization dedicated to recovering ancient artifacts stolen by colonialists), Diana finds herself torn between reconnecting with her Amazon heritage and falling in love with a man. Her ancient counterpart, Myrina (traces of whom Diana has found in various ruins and writings), lands in a similar predicament. After Greek raiders sack the temple of the Moon Goddess (the ruin investigated by Diana), Myrina follows her abducted sisters all the way to Crete, and then to Mycenae, where, aided by Paris, crown prince of Troy, she rescues the women from the clutches of King Agamemnon. After a brief sojourn in Ephesus, Myrina and Paris admit that their destiny is to rule Troy together. Aficionados of Greek mythology and Homeric lore will find much to admire here, although the modern-day sections are encumbered with too many characters and overly intricate plot scaffolding.

Readers patient enough to soldier through to the payoff will not be disappointed.

Pub Date: March 11, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-345-53622-8

Page Count: 528

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION

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WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

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Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.

Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Hulu’s ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Adds To Cast

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THE UNSEEN

by Roy Jacobsen ; translated by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 7, 2020

A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.

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Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.

Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.

A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.