A convincing account of a forgotten injustice, given strangeness and power by its uncanny, incantatory World War II setting.
An often intriguing novel about a young man growing up on the Isle of Man in the 1940s, in which World War II is at once distant and ever present.
In the beginning of Costain’s debut, Erik, the young narrator, stumbles through a familiar trifecta of school, church, and family, living a more or less unexceptional (but enjoyably written) childhood among the fellow residents of his island home. Among these semimythic figures are eccentric gossips, elderly Elizabethan remnants, and most notably, British soldiers. These troops are entrusted with guarding the continental prisoners held in Mooragh Internment Camp, which is located, somehow both prominently and unobtrusively, in Erik’s small hometown of Ramsey. Soon, Erik’s uneventful life takes a turn when he meets one of the prisoners there: Jacob Weiss, an Austrian Jew who fled the continent during Hitler’s rise. Although the novel gets off to a slow start, the narrative hits its stride once Erik meets Jacob and starts to learn his story, and the alternation between Erik’s everyday adventures on the Isle of Man and Jacob’s recollections of his continental past offers an effective, and moving, contrast. Throughout, Costain layers the novel with evocative historical details and oddities. For example, aside from occasional eruptions of violence, the war often remains quite far away: the only victim of German bombing on the Isle of Man, Erik writes, was “a small dead frog,” which was displayed, years later, in the Manx Museum as part of an exhibit on the island’s role in the war. For Jacob, on the other hand, the conflict keeps forcing its way into his life despite his best efforts: “We had all gone quietly to bed and were wakened to this nightmare in a country we thought we could trust; in a place we thought we were safe,” he remarks, reflecting on the shock of his sudden arrest and internment.
A convincing account of a forgotten injustice, given strangeness and power by its uncanny, incantatory World War II setting.Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1460226827
Page Count: 472
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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