A simple and relatable novella about a young man being born again in his faith.
In Mullen-Martin’s novella, a young man embraces Christianity.
As the story opens, young John Yeager has returned home to the small town of Tioga, Texas, after a stint in the U.S. Army in the early 1960s. He’s short on funds, having missed his military separation check when he transferred from Germany, and he finds himself accepting some pocket money from his father, who points out that being in a position where money is chasing after you is a good problem to have. John takes a small room in the family home, wondering what to do with himself. His sister, Olevia, always his champion, invites him to visit her and have her husband find him a job at Republic Air Conditioning in Dallas at $1.35 an hour. This plan doesn’t work out—his slimy boss is only one of many complaints prompting John to walk out. (“Looking back now, he sees a smart-mouthed kid who lacked people skills,” he later reflects, “but on that day, he felt as if he had been named the heavyweight champion of the world.”) Just when he seems to be poised on the brink of lifelong delinquency, he meets a woman named Ruth and falls immediately in love. “There stood an angel personified: barely five feet tall, blond hair that almost reached her waist, a tiny little thing that looked as if she could sit in the palm of a human hand.” Mullen-Martin’s slight plot progresses smoothly as John does the sorts of things many young men might do (like following a pretty young woman into her church). The book’s strongest element emerges in its second half, as John’s focus slowly moves from romance to religion. “Everything the preacher said that night resonated with John,” readers learn. “Every mistake he had ever made bubbled to the surface as he continued to listen.” This religious awakening, “as real as anything that had ever happened in his life,” overtakes and enhances the story.
A simple and relatable novella about a young man being born again in his faith.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9798992009347
Page Count: 162
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Sullivan, winner of Milkweed's 1996 National Fiction Prize for her fifth novel, this follow-up to The Cape Ann (1988), limns with discerning sympathy the struggle of a young girl to escape the terrible toll of a mother's mental illness. The story is set once again in the small town of Harvester, Minnesota; the time now is the mid-1930s, when Sally Wheeler's mother Stella begins having crying spells. She cries when Sally enters kindergarten, she cries in department stores, she cries over anything remotely sad. By the age of seven, Sally resolves that she will never cry as long as she lives. And while her mother gets worse, sinking farther and farther into a depression blamed on menopause, Sally struggles to live a normal life. Sullivan's insights into a child's desperate need for normality and acceptance give immediacy to her story. Close friends like Lark and Beverly- -characters from The Cape Ann—help, as do adults like Lark's mother Arlene Erhart and the widowed Mrs. Stillman and her shell- shocked son Hillyard. Grandparents are loving and attentive, and so is father Donald, but nothing can compensate Sally for her mother's worsening condition. Stella is eventually hospitalized; Sally and her father become the subjects of local prejudice; and, as Sally moves on to high school, these pressures take their toll: Her grades decline, she begins sleeping with boys, and she becomes involved with pathologically possessive Cole Barnstable. A drama teacher, recognizing her acting ability, helps her find some contentment, but when he dies in an accident, Sally falls apart, retreating into herself and cleaning house obsessively, although good friends do come through. Finally encouraged to realize her talents, Sally writes and stars in the ``The Kingdom of Making Sense,'' a play celebrating a place ``where everything is possible, for sadness rarely lasts beyond an hour.'' A perceptive and refreshingly unsensational account, if at times too slowly paced, of a child's determination to claim and affirm life.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 1-57131-011-8
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Milkweed
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
The symbolism of Mary and child coming to liberate the immigrants may be heavy-handed, and occasionally Hussein’s language...
The first novel in English from one of the most important writers in Urdu, an Indian-born author (The Weary Generations, 1999) virtually unknown in the West. That should change.
The story is narrated alternately by Amir, an illegal immigrant in Birmingham, and by his teenaged daughter Parvin, who, having come to England at five, is struggling between the traditional expectations of her father and her desire to enter into the life of her adopted country. Adding drama are the time-shifts between Amir’s first coming to Birmingham and the present, when he is a legal homeowner but nevertheless engaged in a running battle with his wife and children, who have little idea of his struggles to give them a new and better life. It’s a conflict that brings to mind such writers as Henry Roth and Roth’s vivid images of the Lower East Side, as well as V.S. Naipaul with his tales of Indian immigrants in the Caribbean. But, while Abdullah does not suffer from such comparisons, his novel is unique in its depiction of a particular kind of suffering in what most of us consider a civilized country. Unforgettable, for example, is Amir’s memory of living in a house with eight other Pakistanis and his description of their absolute terror at being discovered by the authorities. One of the men finds a lover named Mary, who gets pregnant and later becomes the catalyst for a violent struggle that will break up the group home and force Amir and the others out on their own. After much difficulty, Amir becomes a British citizen, gets a job at the post office, and buys his own home. His dreams are realized, yet he doesn’t do nearly so well with his wife, daughter or son, all in different ways rejecting their father and the life he has chosen for them.
The symbolism of Mary and child coming to liberate the immigrants may be heavy-handed, and occasionally Hussein’s language can be awkward. But altogether Émigré Journeys is a remarkable performance.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-85242-638-1
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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