A compelling tale that’s a must for Hess’ fans and an excellent introduction for everyone else.
In this novel, set in 1930s New York, the lives of three brothers diverge and intertwine as each finds his own pathway to manhood.
Hess’ (Bergdorf Boys, 2011, etc.) latest work is a brutally dark, lyrical fairy tale in which three siblings pursue their respective journeys through life while finding their places within a shattered family. The story establishes its characters right away when eldest brother Dickie pushes youngest Adlai to the ground over a perceived slight. Middle brother Walt doesn’t respond, but Big Ed, a member of the Butchers, Dickie’s small-time Irish gang, finally intervenes. The sheer gravity of Dickie’s violent temperament drags all the brothers down with him. In an effort to go big-time with the Butchers, Dickie intrudes on a meeting between rival Italian mobsters and ends up shooting one of them. Later, he sends an Italian bagman packing by smashing a pickle jar on his head. These acts garner the attention of Frankie, a sharp-dressing mobster, who kidnaps Dickie, beats him to a pulp, and then offers him a job as a hit man, with the caveat that Dickie’s brothers must also work for him. Beautifully written, infused with symbolism and baptisms of blood, fire, and water, this tale shows each character reaching epiphanies in their separate journeys. Adlai, for example, is on the threshold of coming to terms with his homosexuality: “He was thinking almost like another person, an older person, a man from the future…he was aware of a newness coming through him.” Meanwhile, they all find love: Dickie meets his match in an African-American woman named Eva; would-be doctor Walt falls for Adriana, whose physician father despises him; and Adlai enters a dangerous but fulfilling relationship with another man. When Dickie’s plot to fix Walt’s romantic problems backfires, the family hides out in an upstate cabin, where their zombielike father, Pat, rises from the dead, taking charge. At once gritty, poetic, and romantic, Hess’ masterful, elegant style weaves these diverse elements into a seamless narrative that touches the heart of what it means to be human.
A compelling tale that’s a must for Hess’ fans and an excellent introduction for everyone else.Pub Date: April 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-59021-074-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Lethe Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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