A sometimes-confusing tale that doesn’t stand out from the crowd of Vietnam War narratives.
Meece’s (Drifting in Paradise, 2017, etc.) novel follows a sonar technician on the USS Abel in the South China Sea during the Vietnam War.
Petty Officer John Mason longs for his home state of Kentucky as he reckons with the unfamiliar surroundings of combat. The story starts with the Abel patrolling near a small fishing village, anchoring, handing out soda to South Vietnamese soldiers, and receiving orders to shell the nearby forest for days on end. From Mason’s perspective, the banal cruelty of the artillery strike is just another sign of the corruption of an American government that took him away from his fiancee, Sonya, and threw him into harm’s way. Meanwhile, there’s race and class oppression on the Abel, where the enlisted men resent the overbearing, shortsighted officers. Their conversations aboard the ship and belowdecks veer from good-natured joking to nihilistic musing, often from one moment to the next. As the ship moves up the coastline to Hong Kong and back, the crew’s frustration heats up until it reaches a boiling point. And when Mason learns that Sonya has moved on, he feels that he has little left to lose. There are moments of striking depth in this book (“The lives of all are staked on the performance of each”) and other occasions of hilarity, but generally the dialogue feels stilted. Meece does employ some uniquely vivid language at times: “What an offer! I accept with alacrity”; “You imagine the satisfying feel of fisting him good in the middle of his face.” However, the frequent, midchapter shifts in perspective can be confusing; one moment, Mason is relating events in the first person, and then a third-person narrator takes over. Most oddly, the narration addresses Mason as “you” when it delves into Mason’s past. These stylistic choices make the prose difficult to follow and add little to the story.
A sometimes-confusing tale that doesn’t stand out from the crowd of Vietnam War narratives.Pub Date: June 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5446-6323-4
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Kwest House
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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