A touching tale of a gorgeous, complicated family trying to persevere.
An Orthodox Jewish family struggles to adapt to the modern world in this novel.
Ever since he was a kid, Jonathan Bauman has had a reputation as someone who could “figure things out.” That allows him to become a respected legal scholar; find the perfect, if unexpectedly modern, mate in his wife, Sarah; and eventually become a popular rabbi in Lawrence, New York. He is put to the ultimate test when his son Noah finally comes out as gay, and a longtime family friend and president of the congregation, Benjy Marcus, reveals a marital and financial scandal that will send him to jail. Jonathan begins to face more pressure when David Weisberg fills the power vacuum left in Benjy’s wake. Weisberg wants to move the congregation toward stricter Orthodox ways, and views the more moderate Jonathan as an impediment. Jonathan’s reputation takes another blow when the congregation finds out his daughter, Miriam, has been dating a non-Jewish man, an atheist named Rajesh Bhatt. Kane (The Night, the Day, 2015, etc.) adds to his collection of complex, social-minded novels with this deeply moving portrait. The author strikes a beautiful balance in portraying the religious and human elements of the family. The revelations about Noah and Miriam tax Jonathan greatly, and cause him to wrestle with his more Orthodox beliefs. But his love for his children is obvious and he’s willing to challenge the congregation for them. Sarah is more immediately accepting, but neither parent is a caricature. While Noah and Miriam mostly take after their mother, the author uses a subtle detail—the fact that the kids at least share Jonathan’s taste in wine—to deepen the presentation of the family dynamic. The other sibling, Aaron, is the most Orthodox of the three, but has his father’s enormous capacity for understanding. The scene where Noah comes out to Aaron at a basketball game is poignant, with the briefest of flashbacks to make their bond clear.
A touching tale of a gorgeous, complicated family trying to persevere.Pub Date: April 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-944376-08-6
Page Count: 325
Publisher: Berwick Court Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 9, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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