A stylishly structured and poetically described family tale hampered by an improbable key moment.
An Italian American showgirl gives up her daughter for love in this novel.
The story opens with the aging Lina “Lila” Granatelli looking over old photographs in the living room of her elegant Palm Beach, Florida, home. A former stage performer, Lila examines a wartime photo that was given to servicemen who attended her shows. Meanwhile, a piano tuner works on her white baby grand—a wedding present given to Lila by her husband—which she has not played in the 15 years since he died. The tale flips back to the late 1930s with Lila, who has adopted the stage name Lila Grand, beginning her career in the chorus of a Broadway musical. Lila finds herself pregnant by Joe Prince, a fellow cast member who, pursuing his career, leaves her to raise her child alone. Two months after giving birth to Gloria, Lila is back on Broadway and becomes something of a minor celebrity. She meets and falls in love with Willie Burke, a wealthy New Yorker whose family owns a construction business. The Burke family is appalled by the fact the Willie intends to marry a single mother. Lila is told by Willie that Gloria won’t be living with them. Lila reluctantly gives her child to her brother and sister-in-law to raise as their own in St. Louis. But a harrowing legal battle and emotional turmoil ensue when Willie discovers that he is infertile and asks Lila to take the now-8-year-old Gloria back as their own. Bachner (Last Clear Chance, 2015) is capable of writing deeply moving passages, including describing a mother’s love for her young daughter. Early in the story, Lila and her baby daughter share this tender moment on the street: “Lila started the kissing game, quickly kissing Gloria in one corner of her face and then another while Gloria tried to catch her with her hands. This time Gloria was successful, and the chubby fingers grasped Lila’s nose for a moment. They both laughed.” Such episodes make Lila’s decision concerning her daughter—agreeing to give up Gloria so readily—deeply implausible. At first, Lila balks at the suggestion, reacting violently, but she’s later persuaded. Besides Lila’s precocious love for Willie and some sketchy advice from a priest referencing Moses, the author does not provide a sufficiently persuasive set of motives for this abrupt reversal. Bachner’s previous novel was criticized for its prolixity—his second offering has a better pace, and his observations are crisper and more condensed. Describing Lila in old age, he writes: “This is her final stage: an elegant, flightless butterfly, subsisting without nourishment or effort as her one day’s sun completes its circuit.” Yet the tale hinges on a scene that the author struggles to make believable—and this proves to be a major flaw. This is an elegantly written book weakened by a storyline most readers will question.
A stylishly structured and poetically described family tale hampered by an improbable key moment.Pub Date: July 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68433-302-8
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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