Intriguing subplots and juicy entanglements enliven a story of financial and legal misdeeds, making a story of complex yet...
In Hoppenstein’s novel of historical fiction set in post-World War II Argentina, a group of ex-pat Europeans struggle to keep their secrets safe.
In the mid-1930s, certain wealthy Jewish families in Europe become aware of the growing anti-Semitism and political instability in the region, and decide to transfer some of their material assets to an Italian bank. The bank then moves its headquarters to Buenos Aires. After the war, the jewels, cash and paintings fall into legal limbo as the families’ loyalties shift and control of the bank ends up in untrustworthy hands. In addition to the financial and legal drama, many major plot points hinge upon romantic entanglements. Minor characters take center stage for brief chapters as dishwashers become courtesans, journalists become pimps, married men take on lovers and jilted lovers find old passions rekindled. With the subject of post-war allegiances and betrayals, Hoppenstein has found an interesting premise upon which to base his novel, and the various entanglements of the characters—the illegitimate children, the transnational love affairs—are enjoyable side tales that enrich the story. But the main drama surrounding the hidden treasures loses much of its power in comparison to these light, human stories on the periphery. This is largely because the legal and financial intricacies of the plot ultimately prove too complex to follow, and the climactic courtroom battle does little to tie things together. The prose could use some final polish—the author has a distracting fondness for ellipses and a habit of inserting foreign phrases that may frustrate some readers. The dialogue often feels stilted, with characters saying, “As you know,” and then dictating background details for the benefit of the reader—who would certainly prefer a smoother method of explanation.
Intriguing subplots and juicy entanglements enliven a story of financial and legal misdeeds, making a story of complex yet all-too-human motivations.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2010
ISBN: 978-1452088587
Page Count: 204
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It's being called a novel, but it is more a hybrid: short-stories/essays/confessions about the Vietnam War—the subject that O'Brien reasonably comes back to with every book. Some of these stories/memoirs are very good in their starkness and factualness: the title piece, about what a foot soldier actually has on him (weights included) at any given time, lends a palpability that makes the emotional freight (fear, horror, guilt) correspond superbly. Maybe the most moving piece here is "On The Rainy River," about a draftee's ambivalence about going, and how he decided to go: "I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to." But so much else is so structurally coy that real effects are muted and disadvantaged: O'Brien is writing a book more about earnestness than about war, and the peekaboos of this isn't really me but of course it truly is serve no true purpose. They make this an annoyingly arty book, hiding more than not behind Hemingwayesque time-signatures and puerile repetitions about war (and memory and everything else, for that matter) being hell and heaven both. A disappointment.
Pub Date: March 28, 1990
ISBN: 0618706410
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.
Seven stories, including a couple of prizewinners, from an exuberantly talented young Thai-American writer.
In the poignant title story, a young man accompanies his mother to Kok Lukmak, the last in the chain of Andaman Islands—where the two can behave like “farangs,” or foreigners, for once. It’s his last summer before college, her last before losing her eyesight. As he adjusts to his unsentimental mother’s acceptance of her fate, they make tentative steps toward the future. “Farangs,” included in Best New American Voices 2005 (p. 711), is about a flirtation between a Thai teenager who keeps a pet pig named Clint Eastwood and an American girl who wanders around in a bikini. His mother, who runs a motel after having been deserted by the boy’s American father, warns him about “bonking” one of the guests. “Draft Day” concerns a relieved but guilty young man whose father has bribed him out of the draft, and in “Don’t Let Me Die in This Place,” a bitter grandfather has moved from the States to Bangkok to live with his son, his Thai daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. The grandfather’s grudging adjustment to the move and to his loss of autonomy (from a stroke) is accelerated by a visit to a carnival, where he urges the whole family into a game of bumper cars. The longest story, “Cockfighter,” is an astonishing coming-of-ager about feisty Ladda, 15, who watches as her father, once the best cockfighter in town, loses his status, money, and dignity to Little Jui, 16, a meth addict whose father is the local crime boss. Even Ladda is in danger, as Little Jui’s bodyguards try to abduct her. Her mother tells Ladda a family secret about her father’s failure of courage in fighting Big Jui to save his own sister’s honor. By the time Little Jui has had her father beaten and his ear cut off, Ladda has begun to realize how she must fend for herself.
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1788-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
© Copyright 2026 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.
