A poignant and insightful story of life, death, and memory.
A British family reflects on their memorable lives, including their tragic losses, in this debut novel.
Lois works as a nurse in Birmingham, treating victims of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her mother, Cas, spends much of her time alone in Devon, staring at the sea. Both women think about William—Lois’ father and Cas’ husband—who recently died. The nonlinear narrative, however, shines the brightest spotlight on William in the final days before his demise, as he recalls the ups and downs of his family life and career. He and Cas were virtual opposites; he saw the goodness in people, whereas she “hated just about everyone.” They loved each other and married despite their differences, or perhaps because of them. But as William sifts through his recollections, it soon becomes apparent that they may be rooted in delusions. He remembers his years as the pope, for instance, and equates the Vatican with a steel factory where he was once employed. He was also friendly with famous American athletes and actors; helped combat AIDS at the World Health Organization; and soared through the skies as a chief test pilot. His memories are fascinating and preposterous, by turns, and it’s not always clear what’s reality and what may be fantasy. Likewise, his Sunday mornings are with a woman claiming to be his daughter, although he doesn’t seem to remember her. As the story continues, the family suffers another loss, and William, before reaching his end, comes to terms with the life he’s led.
Budden’s generally somber tale can sometimes be hard to follow, although William’s narrative transitions smoothly to various points in his life, from its “last stage” to when Lois and her brother, James, were kids. However, there are many nods to real-world events that have the effect of giving readers a clearer sense of the time periods at hand, as when Lois and her friends imitate Michael Jackson’s moonwalk and William gets himself up to date on new technology, such as DVD players and LCD screens. William refers to metaphorical escalators throughout the novel, including one that effectively offers a gloss on the novel’s entire narrative structure: He remembers stepping onto and off an escalator’s stairs, but he doesn’t recall traveling the moving steps in between. Throughout, Budden offers vivid prose that sparkles: “Above the sea, volcanic cloud formations appeared, edged in red, as if her short breaths took visual form.” Cas’ story as well as Lois’ feel like mere snippets compared to William’s lengthy tale; however, they each aptly reveal different ways of coping: Lois focuses on and immerses herself in family issues, while Cas lives in isolation, and not only because of the ongoing pandemic. Despite its melancholic tone, the story and its characters prove to be endearing. William, for example, is characterized as someone who nurtures a deep desire to help others, and even to save the world, and his wife and daughter are shown to indisputably and unconditionally love their family members.
A poignant and insightful story of life, death, and memory.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-73973-910-2
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Editstream Press
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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