Biographer (Robert Graves, 1995; Ottoline Morrell, 1993) Seymour offers the tale of one Nancy Brewster, whose unstable life is blown out of the water (and into an asylum) by the unscrupulous Isabel March, a character based on the poet Laura Riding. The central event that we wait (and wait) for here is the 1939 stealing of Nancy Brewster’s putatively brilliant literary husband Chance by the putatively brilliant Isabel March/Laura Riding. Isabel has come to the Brewsters as a long-term houseguest, bringing her English non-husband Charles Neville, based on the poet Robert Graves, who in real life did live with Laura Riding but who could be eliminated here (he does in fact just go away) without loss. The sources of Nancy Brewster’s vulnerability are in no doubt as Seymour invents for her a deeply repressed childhood in Boston, a family who adored her brother but neglected her, a frigid mother, and a father who smothered Nancy with a pillow in order to molest her. Strange it can hardly be that Nancy at 18, when she’s moved to New York and marries the penurious but brainy Princeton grad Chance Brewster in 1925, is still afraid of the dark and has problems with sex. History repeats itself, too, when, like her own mother, Nancy dislikes the daughter born as her first child but adores the second, a son. When a beloved uncle dies and the Brewsters move to his big old house—Nancy’s one childhood Eden—on the sea near Salem, Mass., things seem bucolic on the outside, but when the imperious Isabel arrives and begins to steal Chance away, Nancy breaks down amid the symbols of war, witch-hunts, black magic, and danger gathered about her. Appealing glimpses of the day’s East Coast literary life (watch Edmund Wilson take a whipping), but credibility is strained as the psychology of characters is simplified to fit the tale that needs to be told.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-393-04806-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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