The gathering suspense is complemented by nuanced characterization in a pleasingly unpredictable work.
Erotic intrigue, deep-sea diving and clients from hell make for a lively mix in this German author’s fourth novel (In Free Fall, 2010, etc.).
Poor Sven. The German expat runs a diving business for tourists on a Spanish island of volcanic rock in the Atlantic. He’s a superb instructor, never more assured than on the ocean bed; his companion, Antje, handles the admin. It’s a sweet life until his new clients arrive. Jola, accompanied by her older partner, Theo, is a stunning beauty, the star of Germany’s most popular soap. She’s on a mission: She needs to fine-tune her diving skills to land the part of Lotte Haas, pioneer female diver, in an upcoming movie. Signs of trouble between the couple emerge on their first dive. Jola shuts off Theo’s air valve, causing him to panic; Sven is furious and reads them the riot act. Their fights, verbal and physical, illustrate a wretched co-dependency like that of George and Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. For all her fame, Jola is deeply insecure; Theo, a writer whose one novel was published 10 years ago, is her flawed father figure. Sven gets sucked in: Finding Jola’s appeal overwhelming, he comes close to having sex with her when she offers herself. She’s a manipulator, and we know from her diary entries that Sven’s involvement is crucial to her dark strategy, though she hadn’t reckoned on the long-suffering Antje leaving her mate. Zeh guides us through these developments skillfully, and the underwater scenes are as compelling as those on land; she’s been there. Things come to a head at a dinner party on a tycoon’s yacht, where Jola learns her archrival will be playing Lotte, and Theo taunts her mercilessly. The well-orchestrated climax occurs the next day, as Sven explores an underwater wreck while Theo and Jola assist from a chartered vessel. Mischief’s afoot. Will they all survive?
The gathering suspense is complemented by nuanced characterization in a pleasingly unpredictable work.Pub Date: May 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-53758-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...
An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.
Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad. The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized). As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses). Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture. Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."
The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year.Pub Date: March 6, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-70376-4
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000
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