A thought-provoking, comforting story that will likely inspire readers to ponder their family history, their spiritual...
Crafted like memoir, this fictional version of an immigrant’s journey brims with familial affection and spiritual yearning.
Abe Rutkiewicz is 8 years old when his family makes a stealthy flight from their Polish shtetl to cross the Atlantic. The year is 1901, and rumors of pogroms had driven Abe’s father to find a better life in New York. Reunited in Brooklyn, the newly renamed Roth family settles into adjusting to immigrant life: living in tenements and poverty, adapting to a rapidly changing world and sacrificing comfort so their children can realize the family’s dreams. Pickar describes Abe’s journey from childhood to adulthood in meticulous detail, and there’s little here that is revelatory. But the portrayal of this loving family’s steady rise to success is so gentle, and at times lyrical, it’s like being wrapped in an heirloom quilt: There’s a bit of must, but there are also the smells of Grandmother’s cooking and the softness achieved by the passing of time. Yet this is not simply another immigrant tale. When Abe’s trajectory follows that of the American Dream—college, Navy research during World War II, marriage and children, a college professorship—the novel turns toward his spiritual journey. Early on, Jacob Roth’s rigid orthodoxy turns his Abe toward mathematics and science and, as he became more fluent in the philosophy of Spinoza and the nature of physics, toward the question of religion and its purpose. When asked what is the greatest mystery to a physicist, Abe responds, “why there is something, instead of nothing.” Contemplating the relationship between God and nature, Abe is drawn toward the Unitarian-Universalist Church, where he finds a harmonious balance of science and faith. Meanwhile, life goes on, babies are born, family members depart and an aging Abe and wife Rosie spend more time in nature, finding peace in the beauty of the Appalachian Trail. The ending is inevitable and yet still may evoke tears.
A thought-provoking, comforting story that will likely inspire readers to ponder their family history, their spiritual beliefs and even the universe.Pub Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-1469789743
Page Count: 300
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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