by Amy Franklin-Willis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2012
Franklin-Willis has a fine touch for the small-town Southern world in which she grew up and an obvious affection for her...
In Franklin-Willis’ first novel, set in 1985 with backward glances at three decades, a 40-something Southerner struggles to come to grips with his roles as father, son, ex-husband and twin brother.
Ezekiel Cooper was supposed to be the one in his family to make it out of their small working-class community. His mother Lillian, whose own ambitions were thwarted by her first pregnancy, had low expectations for her three daughters, and Ezekiel’s brother Carter was mentally impaired since a childhood bout of encephalitis, but Lillian recognized Ezekiel’s potential and made sure he received a scholarship to the University of Virginia. Twenty years later, Ezekiel works at the elevator plant and lives alone with his dog in a shack in Lillian’s backyard. Divorced from his high-school sweetheart, who has recently remarried, he rarely sees his daughters. And he’s still grief-stricken over Carter’s drowning 10 years earlier. He blames Lillian for Carter’s brief, unhappy life but blames himself for Carter’s accidental death. In a depressed funk, he drives out of town planning to commit suicide. Instead he finds himself heading to the horse-country farm outside Charlottesville, where he lived with Lillian’s cousin Georgia and her wealthy husband Osborne during the happy months he attended college in 1960, before returning home for Christmas. Discovering his mother had placed Carter in a facility, he quit school to take charge of Carter’s care. Now he finds happiness in Virginia again, not to mention potential romance. But then he learns his mother is dying and his older daughter is in emotional crisis, along with his ex-wife. His efforts to balance his own needs with his responsibility to his family are set in relief against Lillian’s memories of being a wife and mother torn between love of family and private yearnings.
Franklin-Willis has a fine touch for the small-town Southern world in which she grew up and an obvious affection for her characters, if anything a surfeit of affection—Ezekiel’s sensitivity strains credibility and wears the reader out.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2005-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Share your opinion of this book
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2018
A tour de force.
Awards & Accolades
Likes
12
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Share your opinion of this book
by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
Share your opinion of this book
More by Lisa Jewell
BOOK REVIEW
by Lisa Jewell
BOOK REVIEW
by Lisa Jewell
BOOK REVIEW
by Lisa Jewell
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
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.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.