Fans of Hoffman’s brand of mystical whimsy will find this paean to New England one of her most satisfying.
In 14 freestanding but consecutive stories, Hoffman (The Story Sisters, 2009, etc.) traces the life of the town of Blackwell, Mass., from its founding in 1750 up to the present as the founders’ descendents connect to the land and each other.
Hallie Brady, who saves her fellow settlers from starvation by catching eels in the river, has a special, perhaps mystical affinity for the local bears. After her daughter’s husband Harry Partridge mistakenly kills her most beloved bear in her back garden, she disappears and Harry buries the bear. In 1792, Johnny (Appleseed) Chapman, the first of many outsiders who drift through, plants a Tree of Life in the center of town. In 1816, another outsider helps find the drowned body of six-year-old Amy Starr before eloping with her older sister. Amy’s “ghost” will appear to future generations. In the Civil War, an injured Partridge finds a reason to live when he falls in love with the war widow of Amy’s nephew. In 1903, Isaac Partridge marries a woman who has reinvented herself, not unlike Hallie Brady. In 1935, a writer from Brooklyn comes to town as part of the WPA and falls in love with a fisherman’s wife who may or may not be an enchanted eel. In 1945, the townspeople believe that the tomatoes that Hannah Partridge, Isaac’s daughter, plants in her garden have the power to make wishes come true; in fact Hannah’s own wish to raise a child without marriage is realized when her sister comes back from World War II with a baby girl named Kate. In 1956, Kate falls in love with a man whose loneliness has turned him into a kind of bear. Discovering bones in her garden in 1986, Kate’s daughter Louise thinks they belong to a dinosaur until the man who loves her proves they came from a bear. Together the lovers re-bury the bones.
Fans of Hoffman’s brand of mystical whimsy will find this paean to New England one of her most satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-39387-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.
Inseparable identical twin sisters ditch home together, and then one decides to vanish.
The talented Bennett fuels her fiction with secrets—first in her lauded debut, The Mothers (2016), and now in the assured and magnetic story of the Vignes sisters, light-skinned women parked on opposite sides of the color line. Desiree, the “fidgety twin,” and Stella, “a smart, careful girl,” make their break from stultifying rural Mallard, Louisiana, becoming 16-year-old runaways in 1954 New Orleans. The novel opens 14 years later as Desiree, fleeing a violent marriage in D.C., returns home with a different relative: her 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The gossips are agog: “In Mallard, nobody married dark....Marrying a dark man and dragging his blueblack child all over town was one step too far.” Desiree's decision seals Jude’s misery in this “colorstruck” place and propels a new generation of flight: Jude escapes on a track scholarship to UCLA. Tending bar as a side job in Beverly Hills, she catches a glimpse of her mother’s doppelgänger. Stella, ensconced in White society, is shedding her fur coat. Jude, so Black that strangers routinely stare, is unrecognizable to her aunt. All this is expertly paced, unfurling before the book is half finished; a reader can guess what is coming. Bennett is deeply engaged in the unknowability of other people and the scourge of colorism. The scene in which Stella adopts her White persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion. It calls up Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the book's 50-year-old antecedent. Bennett's novel plays with its characters' nagging feelings of being incomplete—for the twins without each other; for Jude’s boyfriend, Reese, who is trans and seeks surgery; for their friend Barry, who performs in drag as Bianca. Bennett keeps all these plot threads thrumming and her social commentary crisp. In the second half, Jude spars with her cousin Kennedy, Stella's daughter, a spoiled actress.
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53629-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An engaging, inclusive debut.
A young woman with cognitive disabilities finds inspiration in Viking legends and prepares herself to become a hero when her brother gets involved with drug dealers.
Zelda knows she’s different than most people she meets, and she understands that difference is because of something called fetal alcohol syndrome. She has seen the unkind glances and heard the muttered slurs, but really, she just wants what any 21-year-old wants: love, acceptance, and some degree of independence to make decisions about her life. Also? A really good sword would be useful. Zelda is obsessed with Vikings—their legends, their fierce loyalty, their courage in the face of danger. Like the ancient clans, she finds strength in her tribe: her older brother, Gert, and his on-again, off-again girlfriend, AK47, plus her helpful therapist and her friends at the community center, especially her boyfriend, Marxy. He isn’t the best kisser, but he’s willing to try sex, a subject about which Zelda is definitely curious. But when Gert struggles to pay the bills and gets involved with dangerous drug dealers, Zelda knows she has to step in and help him whatever the cost. “The hero in a Viking legend is always smaller than the villain,” she reasons. “That is what makes it a legend.” In this engaging debut novel, MacDonald skillfully balances drama and violence with humor, highlighting how an unorthodox family unit is still a family. He’s never condescending, and his frank examination of the real issues facing cognitively disabled adults—sexuality, employment, independence—is bracing and compassionate. With Zelda, he’s created an unforgettable character, one whose distinctive voice is entertaining and inspiring. Will appeal to fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
An engaging, inclusive debut.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2676-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
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