A light, precisely observed novel.
A YA author’s nicely written adult debut novel blends historical richness and a fine sense of place to tell the story of a woman’s developing love for her husband—and for his Colorado farmland—over the course of six months in 1944.
In wartime Denver, Olivia Dunne becomes pregnant after a one-night stand with a departing American soldier. With the help of a local church, her father arranges her marriage to Ray Singleton, a beet farmer in faraway La Junta. Olivia’s first days on the isolated farm are awkward, and Ray, a shy, reticent man of good intentions, isn’t very adept at small talk. Precluded from contributing anything useful to the running of the farm, whose harvests are cultivated in part by labor from the local internment camp, Olivia takes long solitary walks. During one of them she meets Rose and Lorelei Umahara, Japanese-Americans from California who have been evacuated to confinement in Colorado. Young, enthusiastic, and passionate about butterfly hunting, the sisters introduce Olivia to the thriving, emotionally rich life of the camp. She keeps her friendship with the girls secret; Ray, whose brother was killed at Pearl Harbor, displays no fondness for the Japanese who work his farm. Creel does a delightful job of evoking first the dreariness of the Singleton farm and Olivia’s unnerving loneliness, then the slow ripening of her affection for Ray, a simple but profoundly kind and gentle man. Rose and Lorelei, meanwhile, hint that they have begun dating a pair of American soldiers, and Olivia drives them to meet the men in secret. But the “soldiers” turn out to be German POWs escaping with the help of the sisters, who make Olivia an unwitting accomplice. The author gives her heroine a satisfying emotional depth, moving Olivia through phases of affection and disappointment with assured confidence before closing with a tranquil scene after the baby is born.
A light, precisely observed novel.Pub Date: July 9, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-91027-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
Cherry blossomdelicate, with images as carefully sculpted as bonsai, this tale of the life of a renowned geisha, one of the last flowers of a kind all but eliminated by WW II, marks an auspicious, unusual debut. Japan is already changing, becoming industrialized and imperialistic, when in 1929 young Chiyo's fisherman father sells her to a house in Kyoto's famous Gion district. The girl's gray- eyed beauty is startling even in childhood, so much so that her training is impeded by the jealousy of her house's primary geisha, the popular, petty Hatsumomo. Caught trying to run away, Chiyo loses her trainee status until taken under the wing of Mameha, a bitter rival of Hatsumomo. Chiyo flourishes with Mameha as her guide, soon receiving her geisha name, Sayuri, and having her mentor skillfully arrange the two main events vital to a geisha's success: the sale of Sayuri's virginity (for a record price), and the finding of a sugar-daddy to pay her way. Seeing the implications of Japan's militarism, Mameha pairs Sayuri with the general in charge of army provisions, so that as WW II drags on she and her house have things no one else in Gion can obtain. After the war, with her general dead and others vying for her attention, Sayuri pines anew for the only man she ever loved—an electrical- corporation chairman whose kindness to a crying Chiyo years before altered the course of her future. He seems out of reach since his right-hand man and closest friend is her most ardent admirer, but in the end her long-thwarted happiness is accomplished. Though incomparable in its view of a geisha's life behind the scenes, the story loses immediacy as it goes along. When modern times eclipse Gion's sheltered world, the latter part of Sayuri's life—compared to the incandescent clarity of its first decades- -seems increasingly flat. (First printing of 75,000)
Pub Date: Oct. 6, 1997
ISBN: 0-375-40011-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1997
Character motivation is the main puzzle here.
In 1740s London, a mother attempting to retrieve her child must first unsnarl a mystery—and so must readers.
Halls’ (The Familiars, 2019) two adult protagonists, whose stories alternate in long sections, are Bess Bright, a working-class London shrimp vendor, and Alexandra Callard, the wealthy widow of whalebone merchant Daniel. Like many impoverished Londoners, Bess cannot afford to raise her child, Clara, whom she delivers as a newborn to the Foundling Hospital. Six years later, after painstakingly accumulating the fee for Clara’s release, Bess is told that Clara was reclaimed the day after her admission—by Bess herself. Unpicking this conundrum will be the book’s major focus, to its detriment. As Bess continues her quest at the hospital, with the help of its sympathetic physician, Dr. Mead, she encounters Mrs. Callard and her child, Charlotte, on what will prove to be one of their rare outings. On a hunch that has everything to do with the brief assignation—with Daniel Callard—that impregnated her, Bess assumes that Charlotte is Clara. Cut to Alexandra, who is raising Charlotte as her own. Though she's a first-person narrator, Alexandra withholds information on several key issues, particularly how she came by Charlotte and exactly how much she knows of Charlotte’s parentage. Why is Alexandra housebound by choice? And obsessed with locks and maps? When Bess, calling herself Eliza Smith, wangles a position as Charlotte’s nursemaid, it is unclear why Dr. Mead, Alexandra’s only friend besides her sister, Ambrosia, recommends “Eliza” for the job when he knows her real name. The puzzle-box plot distracts readers from the far more compelling enigmas that have made “lost orphans” of all three main characters. A notable strength of the novel is the depiction of the entrenched social injustice that affords slum-dwellers like Bess so few options. Various mid-18th-century subsistence occupations are vividly evoked, including Bess’ workdays doling out boiled shrimp from her hat and “linkboys,” who guide people through London’s unlit streets at night.
Character motivation is the main puzzle here.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7783-0932-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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