Whether the bird lore is essential to the story is debatable; what is not is the elegance of the meditation on mortality.
In Kessler’s second novel (following Lick Creek, 2001, not reviewed), the relatives of the victims of an airplane crash are thrown together briefly in a remote inn.
A Dutch jet plane, en route from New York to Amsterdam, crashes into the ocean off Trachis Island, near Nova Scotia. The local innkeeper, Kevin Gearns, a middle-aged gay American who owns the inn with his partner Douglas, is asked to accommodate the passengers’ relatives. They are a mixed bunch: a Chinese couple, a Bulgarian pianist, an Iranian exile, etc. And then there is the American ornithologist, Ana Gathreaux; she and Kevin are the protagonists. We seem to be in for a formulaic story of strangers becoming entangled, but that is not Kessler’s purpose. He is as much concerned with the spirit as the flesh. One of the passengers, Ana’s husband Russell (another ornithologist), had wondered, seconds before the crash, about his coming metamorphosis. He had once told Ana he believed in ghosts. The Liangs from Taipei are absolute believers; they wait up all night for their daughter Tien to appear. Diana Olmstead, a convert to Buddhism who has lost a sister, has a different agenda. She feels compelled to offer comfort to all “the souls of the dead through their transmigration,” for there will be no survivors. The climax for the relatives comes on a night during a raging storm, when the power is out. They are drawn to the candlelit piano where the Bulgarian is playing a Chopin nocturne for his drowned cellist wife, and creating a momentary union between the living and the dead, gathered outside. This might have been a haunting novella, but Kessler has enlarged his story with extensive commentary on birds, especially their migratory patterns, Ana’s specialty. We are left reflecting how much we already know about their extraordinary journeys, and how little about our own.
Whether the bird lore is essential to the story is debatable; what is not is the elegance of the meditation on mortality.Pub Date: April 18, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-8738-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
This is the sort of book that stirs one so deeply that it is almost impossible to attempt to convey the impression it leaves. It is the story of today's Exodus, of America's great trek, as the hordes of dispossessed tenant farmers from the dust bowl turn their hopes to the promised land of California's fertile valleys. The story of one family, with the "hangers-on" that the great heart of extreme poverty sometimes collects, but in that story is symbolized the saga of a movement in which society is before the bar. What an indictment of a system — what an indictment of want and poverty in the land of plenty! There is flash after flash of unforgettable pictures, sharply etched with that restraint and power of pen that singles Steinbeck out from all his contemporaries. There is anger here, but it is a deep and disciplined passion, of a man who speaks out of the mind and heart of his knowledge of a people. One feels in reading that so they must think and feel and speak and live. It is an unresolved picture, a record of history still in the making. Not a book for casual reading. Not a book for unregenerate conservative. But a book for everyone whose social conscience is astir — or who is willing to face facts about a segment of American life which is and which must be recognized. Steinbeck is coming into his own. A new and full length novel from his pen is news. Publishers backing with advertising, promotion aids, posters, etc. Sure to be one of the big books of the Spring. First edition limited to half of advance as of March 1st. One half of dealer's orders to be filled with firsts.
Pub Date: April 14, 1939
ISBN: 0143039431
Page Count: 532
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1939
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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