An intelligently conceived and artistically executed reconsideration of religious history.
A novel reimagines the life of the Buddha’s wife, a powerful spiritual figure in her own right.
As Yasodhara, the daughter of the “village oligarch,” mourns the accidental death of her younger sister, Deepa, she is thrown into confusion and despair. She vows to find and rescue her sister’s spirit one day, a commitment poignantly depicted by McHugh: “Under the white misshapen moon, I knelt down and promised my sister that if at all possible I would find her soul so she could be with her family again and not have to travel through realms of samsara, lonely forever.” But years later, when her older sister, Kisa, on the cusp of marriage, dies as well, she offers to take her place and marry Siddhartha, hoping to lift the weight of her mother’s grief. Siddhartha has a reputation for frivolously enjoying sensuous pleasures but becomes a devoted husband, though he is plagued by the suffering of the world and tired of therapeutically creating “false paradises” to avoid it. He abandons Yasodhara and their son, Rahula, only days old, to seek spiritual enlightenment; he’s gone for so long she considers remarriage. Siddhartha eventually finds both spiritual awakening and a considerable following, but when Yasodhara decides to join his order, she is prohibited because she is a woman, a problem thoughtfully portrayed by the author. Refusing to be daunted, Yasodhara disguises herself as a male aspirant and assumes the name Ananda. She not only attempts to become a monk, but also persuades Siddhartha, now the Buddha, to open his ranks to women, a possibility some consider “preposterous.” McHugh deftly manages to vividly convey a moving drama with a message about female empowerment at its core without indulging in any heavy-handed, didactic sermonizing. This is an impressive tapestry of history, spiritual philosophy, and literary drama and an edifying look at the patriarchal limitations of Buddhism’s genesis.
An intelligently conceived and artistically executed reconsideration of religious history.Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-948626-23-1
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Monkfish Book Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
An impressive addition to the library of historical fiction on the Civil War, worthy of a place alongside The Killer Angels,...
A thunderous, action-rich first novel of the Civil War, based on historical fact.
Music publisher Hicks treats a long-overlooked episode of the war in this account of the Battle of Franklin, Tenn., which took place in November 1864 near Nashville. As a field hospital is pitched in her field, Carrie McGavock, an iron-spined farm woman and upstanding citizen of the town, takes it upon herself to tend after the Confederate wounded; later, she and her husband will rebury 1,500 of the fallen on their property. Hicks centers much of the story on Carrie, who has seen her own children die of illness and who has endurance in her blood. “I was not a morbid woman,” Carrie allows, “but if death wanted to confront me, well, I would not turn my head. Say what you have to say to me, or leave me alone.” Other figures speak their turn. One is a young Union officer amazed at the brutal and sometimes weird tableaux that unfold before him; as the bullets fly, he pauses before a 12-year-old rebel boy suffocating under the weight of his piled-up dead comrades. “Suffocated. I had never considered the possibility,” young Lt. Stiles sighs. Another is an Arkansas soldier taken prisoner by the Yankees: “I became a prisoner and accepted all the duties of a prisoner just as easily as I’d picked up the damned colors and walked forward to the bulwarks.” Yet another is Nathan Forrest, who would strike fear in many a heart as a Confederate cavalryman, and later as the founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Hicks renders each of these figures with much attention to historical detail and a refreshing lack of genre cliché, closing with a subtle lament for the destruction of history before the bulldozer: “One longs to know that some things don’t change, that some of us will not be forgotten, that our perambulations upon the earth are not without point or destination.”
An impressive addition to the library of historical fiction on the Civil War, worthy of a place alongside The Killer Angels, Rifles for Watie and Shiloh.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-446-50012-7
Page Count: 404
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.
A sprawling story about two sisters growing up, apart, and back together.
Jo and Bethie Kaufman may be sisters, but they don’t have much else in common. As young girls in the 1950s, Jo is a tomboy who’s uninterested in clothes while Bethie is the “pretty one” who loves to dress up. When their father dies unexpectedly, the Kaufman daughters and their mother, Sarah, suddenly have to learn how to take care of themselves at a time when women have few options. Jo, who realizes early on that she’s attracted to girls, knows that it will be difficult for her to ever truly be herself in a world that doesn’t understand her. Meanwhile, Bethie struggles with her appearance, using food to handle her difficult emotions. The names Jo and Beth aren’t all that Weiner (Hungry Heart, 2016, etc.) borrows from Little Women; she also uses a similar episodic structure to showcase important moments of the sisters’ lives as she follows them from girlhood to old age. They experience the civil rights movement, protests, sexual assault, drugs, sex, and marriage, all while dealing with their own personal demons. Although men are present in both women's lives, female relationships take center stage. Jo and Bethie are defined not by their relationships with husbands or boyfriends, but by their complex and challenging relationships with their mother, daughters, friends, lovers, and, ultimately, each other. Weiner resists giving either sister an easy, tidy ending; their sorrows are the kind that many women, especially those of their generation, have had to face. The story ends as Hillary Clinton runs for president, a poignant reminder of both the strides women have made since the 1950s and the barriers that still hold them back.
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3348-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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