Vivid and complex, this novel is a portrait of a very specific moment in history that feels just as vital today.
In his debut novel, Howard pits youthful idealism against the realities of post-colonial Latin America.
Peter Franklin is a Fulbright Scholar living in Guatemala City in 1963, researching the Great National Literacy Campaign and working closely with the U.S. Embassy. At an embassy party he meets Laura Jenson, a Peace Corps volunteer living in a village outside the city; her initial work with wells was cut short after a corrupt official made off with the funds, leaving her to work on launching a literacy program for locals. Peter and Laura slowly forge a relationship, and when Laura becomes involved with a growing revolutionary movement, Peter starts working with her. But quickly the state security forces become aware of their involvement, and the young couple become fugitives in a country they had once hoped to help through peaceful means. Telling a story about Latin America through the eyes of U.S. citizens is a risky move, but it’s one the author pulls off well. Capturing the sense of intellectual hope that resonated in the JFK years, the author has crafted a book that interrogates the place of Americans in the developing world and their capacity for helping solve problems created in large part by their own government’s policies. The novel is subtly critical of the “White Savior” narrative, although at times the story (told from the perspective of a young white man) is overwhelmed by the clear sense of entitlement even supposed liberal reformers can feel. But ultimately this is a cautionary tale for those who believe it is their place to “fix” a country to which they do not belong, a lesson that is just as important today as it was in the early 1960s.
Vivid and complex, this novel is a portrait of a very specific moment in history that feels just as vital today.Pub Date: June 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-941861-394
Page Count: 315
Publisher: Harvard Square Editions
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
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
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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