A slow-moving but profound tale of a man’s complex spiritual journey.
In this debut novel, an Irish Catholic priest seemingly questioning his faith seeks enlightenment in Africa with the world’s oldest living race.
Father David Callaghan is considering stepping down from the pulpit. The brutal rape and murder of a childhood friend proved a devastating blow to his altruism. As he ruminates on the human condition, he’s determined to know “what went wrong” with society. Answers may lie with the San people in southern Africa, the oldest race in terms of genetics. David takes a leave from the priesthood and flies to Namibia to join an anthropological team, which includes scientists from Sweden and Norway. Their goal is preserving the San’s endangered languages as well as helping “semi-Westernized” locals re-create the race’s original lifestyle as hunter-gatherers. Though David can’t quite explain his reason for being in Namibia, the priest finds himself unquestionably attracted to anthropologist Marie Steensen. Circumstances later turn unexpectedly dire, as someone fatally stabs a team member and foreign hunters seem intent on abducting a young San boy. David soon has an important decision to make—will he go back to Ireland, and if so, will he return to the church as well? Costa’s deliberately paced story paints a sublime portrait of the real-life San. Readers, for example, learn about their history along with their culture, including trance dances, when the community sings “healing, medicinal songs.” The narrative spotlight turns to David and the research team in the latter half. David’s plight is sympathetic, as he’s also lost his mother. But his intentions in Africa are, as Marie aptly puts it, “a bit confusing.” He merely waits for inspiration to hit, which it eventually—and fortunately—does. The standout among a memorable cast, with sadly few San characters, is 80-year-old Elizabeth O’Brien, senior Irish pastoral council member and David’s warmhearted, maternal housekeeper.
A slow-moving but profound tale of a man’s complex spiritual journey.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-91-985131-8-9
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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
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