A tale of an immigrant family rendered with unusual care, though it strains too hard for depth at times.
A Greek immigrant in his sunset years takes out a lifetime’s worth of frustrations on his three daughters in this seriocomic debut.
By most measures, Stavros has had a good life in America, successfully launching two New Jersey restaurants and raising three daughters. But the novel opens with an email venting his frustrations with those around him: daughter Stavroula for not adhering to “normal society” (read: she has a girlfriend); daughter Litza for picking up the addictions that consumed his first wife; second wife Carol for, he claims, pitting the two daughters against him. But Stavros is a frustration himself: the “let me explain you” that opens his email tirade signals both his poor grammar and his patriarchal attitude. The early sections of the novel mainly circle on his family’s and friends’ reactions to Stavros’ claim that he will die in 10 days and then on a disappearance that suggests he might do himself in. Liontas carries this story with some carefully tuned humor, recognizing Stavros’ absurdity without allowing him to degrade into a wacky-immigrant cliché. That’s bolstered by the history of Stavros’ upbringing in Crete and his hardscrabble early days in the United States, where Stavroula and Litza are effectively neglected by their overworked father and checked-out mother. Even so, the novel feels at once overstuffed and undercooked, brimming with characters Liontas doesn’t always seem sure what to do with; Stavros’ girlfriend, second wife, and third daughter are unfinished characters, and Litza’s habit of contemplating people via the ailment codes she uses at her job at an insurance company feels more like a writerly gimmick than characterization. Liontas handles Stavros’ final fate gracefully, if a touch abstractly, recognizing the pull that even the most exasperating loved ones have on us in a family.
A tale of an immigrant family rendered with unusual care, though it strains too hard for depth at times.Pub Date: July 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-8908-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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
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
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