Touching and well-written.
Linked perspectives connect the quirky residents of an apartment building in Somer’s second novel (Imperfections, 2012).
Though it appears unremarkable from the outside, the Seville on Roxy—a “Multi-Residential, High-Density High-Rise”—is teeming with life. And as a goldfish named Ian plunges from a fishbowl on a 27th-floor balcony toward the pavement, he registers brief glimpses of the lives occurring within, which Somer fleshes into vivid, interwoven strands. There’s Katie, a sensitive college student visiting the Seville to find out if her boyfriend loves her; meanwhile, Connor Radley, said boyfriend, clears his apartment of guilty debris (and the woman in his bed). A landlord named Jiminez attempts to fix the building’s broken elevator, forcing everyone to take the stairs—including social outcast Herman and Garth, a burly construction worker clutching a secret package. On the eighth floor, the heavily pregnant Petunia Delilah goes into labor alone while, several apartments over, Claire the shut-in loses her job at a phone-sex line. As their perspectives cycle through, the residents’ lives collide in unexpected ways. As she climbs the stairs, Katie passes Connor’s lover wearing her own nightshirt, forcing her to “stay amid her delusions in the stairwell” or confront her clearly unfaithful boyfriend. Petunia knocks on nearby doors for help, and Garth unwraps the package and changes into his beautiful dress, unaware that an unanticipated visitor may soon discover his secret. As the action in the Seville mounts, confrontations play out, lives hang in the balance, and identities are exposed. Somer has created well-developed characters and effectively transports the reader into their three-dimensional worlds; there are also genuinely touching moments, as when Claire and Herman attempt to deliver Petunia’s baby with the help of an emergency response worker. Somer stitches things together a bit too neatly, however. From Ian’s eventual salvation to Claire’s link to the emergency response worker, these coincidences detract from the story’s believability; nonetheless, the plot’s center of human kindness mostly makes up the difference.
Touching and well-written.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4668-6170-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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