An earnest but overlong story about philosophy, gay rights, and religion.
In Pierce’s debut novel, four students at a small Midwestern college join a philosophy club that organizes an explosive debate.
As the fall term begins at Wasserman College in 1987, four students arrive on campus, each harboring reservations about the experience. Eighteen-year-old Paul Jorkinn has indicated he’d prefer a gay roommate, and transfer student Edward Filkers has done the same. Lynn Ritchie, a lifelong resident of the town, registers for music classes despite the fact that she, like many other locals, never cared about the college very much. Occasional student Craig Loomis, having left his factory job, reregisters at Wasserman for one more go. Overseeing the students is administrator Amelia Rosser, who’s personally assigned Edward and Paul to the same room and is fully aware of the potentially controversial nature of that decision. The lengthy narrative stretches over more than 750 pages and revolves around the campus philosophy club, which takes the provocative step of organizing a campus debate regarding homosexuality and religious doctrine. Meanwhile, gay students, including Edward and Paul, push to form an activist gay and lesbian organization—a move that some other students view as radical. As the plans move forward, tensions rise on campus, and a new kind of activism leads to fears of unforeseen consequences. Over the course of Pierce’s epic-length novel, he does a fine job of characterizing university life in the late 1980s, including the intense bigotry toward gay people, which included violence. The various characters are well drawn, for the most part. However, there are also too many people with the surname Smith, which may lead to some confusion. The students’ philosophical discussions can also be rather lengthy, so that the writing starts to feel hazy, and the main thread of the plot gets lost. The impassioned conclusion is an effective one. However, a stronger edit would have trimmed the excess before it.
An earnest but overlong story about philosophy, gay rights, and religion.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2004
ISBN: 978-1-4140-1045-8
Page Count: 740
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2020
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
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SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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