A thoughtful look back at one of the great movements for social and political change of the last century and its...
From anti-apartheid revolutionary to aging exile, Henry Wegland struggles to balance truth and justice, love and passion; in this gentle and heartfelt first novel, nothing is black and white.
It's 1961. A year has passed since the Sharpeville massacre, and organized resistance against apartheid is picking up steam in South Africa. A young white lawyer has decided he must join the newly formed military wing of the African National Congress; the risks to his family, his career, and his safety weigh in the balance against the future of his country. Other comrades—Nelson, Walter, Slovo—face the same dangers. A lifetime later, Henry, living with his son’s family in Park Slope, Brooklyn, sends his grandson, Saul, to a very different South Africa in search of the loose ends of an eventful life. Debut novelist Schneider spans continents, decades, and generations as he skillfully interweaves Henry’s immigrant childhood with his activist years and reflective old age with vivid immediacy. The diverse cast of characters—young and old; African, European, and American—is deftly drawn with compassion and respect. The novel is finely plotted and lucidly written, with touches of sensuality and lyricism and a keen attention to emotional truth. Schneider tenderly evokes at once the slow decay of marriages and parent-child relationships and the long half-lives of passion and family history; he subtly demonstrates the way trust is eroded by secrecy and how the seed of love can generate love, even across decades.
A thoughtful look back at one of the great movements for social and political change of the last century and its ramifications in the present through the life of one man. It will reward readers interested in South African history as well as those who simply want to be drawn into the well-told story of an unusual life.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-57962-426-2
Page Count: 230
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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