An upbeat but odd tale of kindness and redemption in the face of vast trauma.
In this novel, an aging Southern doctor takes in a runaway sex worker, much to the consternation of the women in his life.
Nineteen-year-old Lisa Higgins has just escaped the men who trafficked her for the last three years, shuttling her through black market brothels between Detroit and Miami. She isn’t out of the woods just yet. As she sits on a park bench in Bowling Green, Kentucky, she knows her former captor, Big John, is still looking for her. Then comes a chance encounter with Michael “Doc” McGinley, a septuagenarian widower who struggles to fill his days with meaning since retirement. He wants to do what he can to help the troubled young woman despite knowing almost nothing about her: “I believe the Good Lord puts people in our path, and it’s up to us how we respond. Nothing may come of this, but if it does, it was meant to be. Simple as that.” He offers her the apartment above his garage. It takes a full week for Lisa to take Doc up on his proposal—and even then she plans to rob him and move on—and her appearance greatly displeases his daughter, Jennifer, a university professor in England home for Christmas break. Despite the escalating tensions between Jennifer and Lisa—the former catches the latter stealing her dead mother’s possessions—Doc lets the young woman stay in exchange for helping out around the house. Doc’s neighbor Grace Ann Marshall is enlisted to aid Lisa in getting her GED certificate, though Grace Ann’s feelings about both the runaway and Doc himself are complicated. As the four people get used to the new living situation—one that is uncomfortable for everyone—they find unexpected opportunities to confront some of the long unresolved issues in their pasts.
Gildersleeve’s prose is sunny and smooth, and, despite the subject matter, he generally avoids offering readers anything too gruesome or explicit. Here, Grace Ann reacts to Lisa’s asking her if she’s ever seen pornography: “Grace Ann was caught off guard by words in such stark contrast to the beautiful setting. ‘No, I can honestly say I never have. Been tempted, since I understand it’s so easy to find on the Internet. But no, I haven’t. Why do you ask?’ ” The book is meant to be wholesome and inspirational, centered on the munificence of Doc (whom the author explicitly likens to Gregory Peck’s portrayal of Atticus Finch in the film To Kill a Mockingbird) and the inherent goodness of Lisa. But the author has perhaps bitten off more than he can chew with the topic of human trafficking. The difficult subject often feels incongruous to the novel’s tone: Lisa’s “counselors knew the horror of what happened to her, and hundreds of thousands of others like her in this country alone, is a far cry from the Hollywood glamorization of prostitution in movies like Pretty Woman, Never on Sunday and Irma la Douce.” Much of the book focuses on the other characters’ more mundane struggles with love and loss. Generous readers may be satisfied by the warm ending, but some will feel otherwise.
An upbeat but odd tale of kindness and redemption in the face of vast trauma.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64438-044-4
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Booklocker.com
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
