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
You will never forget Shuggie Bain. Scene by scene, this book is a masterpiece.
Alcoholism brutally controls the destiny of a beautiful woman and her children in working-class Scotland.
The way Irvine Welsh’s Trainspottingcarved a permanent place in our heads and hearts for the junkies of late-1980s Edinburgh, the language, imagery, and story of fashion designer Stuart’s debut novel apotheosizes the life of the Bain family of Glasgow. Stunning, raven-haired Agnes Bain is often compared to Elizabeth Taylor. When we meet her in 1981, she’s living with her parents and three “weans” in a crowded high-rise flat in a down-and-out neighborhood called Sighthill. Her second husband, Hugh "Shug" Bain, father of her youngest, Shuggie, is a handsome taxi driver with a philandering problem that is racing alongside Agnes’ drinking problem to destroy their never-very-solid union. In indelible, patiently crafted vignettes covering the next 11 years of their lives, we watch what happens to Shuggie and his family. Stuart evokes the experience of each character with unbelievable compassion—Agnes; her mother, Lizzie; Shug; their daughter, Catherine, who flees the country the moment she can; artistically gifted older son Leek; and the baby of the family, Shuggie, bullied and outcast from toddlerhood for his effeminate walk and manner. Shuggie’s adoration of his mother is the light of his life, his compass, his faith, embodied in his ability to forgive her every time she resurrects herself from a binge: “She was no use at maths homework, and some days you could starve rather than get a hot meal from her, but Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high. When she had disgraced herself with drink, she got up the next day, put on her best coat, and faced the world. When her belly was empty and her weans were hungry, she did her hair and let the world think otherwise.” How can love be so powerful and so helpless at the same time? Readers may get through the whole novel without breaking down—then read the first sentence of the acknowledgements and lose it. The emotional truth embodied here will crack you open.
You will never forget Shuggie Bain. Scene by scene, this book is a masterpiece.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4804-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.
A sprawling story about two sisters growing up, apart, and back together.
Jo and Bethie Kaufman may be sisters, but they don’t have much else in common. As young girls in the 1950s, Jo is a tomboy who’s uninterested in clothes while Bethie is the “pretty one” who loves to dress up. When their father dies unexpectedly, the Kaufman daughters and their mother, Sarah, suddenly have to learn how to take care of themselves at a time when women have few options. Jo, who realizes early on that she’s attracted to girls, knows that it will be difficult for her to ever truly be herself in a world that doesn’t understand her. Meanwhile, Bethie struggles with her appearance, using food to handle her difficult emotions. The names Jo and Beth aren’t all that Weiner (Hungry Heart, 2016, etc.) borrows from Little Women; she also uses a similar episodic structure to showcase important moments of the sisters’ lives as she follows them from girlhood to old age. They experience the civil rights movement, protests, sexual assault, drugs, sex, and marriage, all while dealing with their own personal demons. Although men are present in both women's lives, female relationships take center stage. Jo and Bethie are defined not by their relationships with husbands or boyfriends, but by their complex and challenging relationships with their mother, daughters, friends, lovers, and, ultimately, each other. Weiner resists giving either sister an easy, tidy ending; their sorrows are the kind that many women, especially those of their generation, have had to face. The story ends as Hillary Clinton runs for president, a poignant reminder of both the strides women have made since the 1950s and the barriers that still hold them back.
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3348-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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