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FLYING INTO THE STORM

Norris’ debut historical drama follows a young U.S. soldier sent to Vietnam the same year as the Tet Offensive; he’s confronted with dwindling support back home and mutual animosity and distrust between Americans and South Vietnamese.
It’s 1968, and Pfc. Jared Christopher, barely 20, is stationed in Quang Ngãi. Jared isn’t like some of his fellow soldiers, who hate the local villagers and associate them with the Viet Cong. He quickly befriends a young girl and street vendor, Dam, and later visits an orphanage to drop off food, baby powder and other supplies. The various combat assaults are harrowing: The infantrymen trek through the dense jungle and are often killed by the Viet Cong. But Jared also faces resentment from American soldiers, who view him as a VC sympathizer when he takes in and even hopes to adopt Quang, a Vietnamese boy orphaned by the war. The novel can be a dark, disheartening affair: Jared loses a few of his close friends in combat, and one man in particular, whom Jared greatly admires, is introduced and killed in quick succession. Jared feels overwhelmingly guilty about his own actions, including shooting a boy not yet in his teens. But the protagonist’s good deeds—sitting with a small family and helping polish rice or not telling fellow troops about a woman, possibly a VC, and her newborn baby—give him a sense of purpose and serve as a counterbalance to all the violence. Norris extends the horrors of war to the Vietnamese jungles, filled with giant mosquitoes and leeches, whose knack for digging into the skin is relayed in all its stomach-churning glory. Norris effectively conveys the loss of hope in Vietnam and villagers’ loss of trust in soldiers who don’t respect them. But Jared brings humanity to the story; even Quang, who stays at the Army base, escapes from the orphanage to be with him.

Authentically details a ferocious year in Vietnam and delivers an unforgettable ending.

Pub Date: March 20, 2014

ISBN: 978-0991540907

Page Count: 250

Publisher: Nekko Books LLC

Review Posted Online: July 9, 2014

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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MAGIC HOUR

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

Pub Date: March 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-345-46752-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005

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