Come for the Applebee’s-sponsored rehearsal dinner and stay for the extended journey of a goat into the next life.
In rural Louisiana, a conservative Christian mom tries to get her mind around hosting the fabulous nuptials required by her son’s marriage.
It’s a long way from New Orleans to the Polite Society Ranch, where Chrissy Durang is getting through one more school bus full of little field trippers as she awaits the arrival of her adored son, Barnett, who’s returning, she’s sure, to take the reins of the old homestead. But to her unhappy surprise, Barnett is not coming to assume responsibility for the blind chicken, the alpaca with alopecia, and the beloved dying goat, Elaine (who will be buried near her late compadres, Seinfeld, Kramer, and George). Instead, he’s coming to announce that he’s getting married, and he has fiance Ezra on his arm. The story spirals from there in two directions. In the hilarious one, Ezra’s mother, Victoria, “the alcoholic’s alcoholic, the silver-tongued complainer who only flies first-class,” and event-planner sister, Nichole, show up to organize the blessed event, planning to transform the farm into “a modern gay wonderland” with a gazebo, a brigade of fireflies, rainbow-sashed valet parkers, and more—though no separate chef for the animals, Nichole pouts, “because that guy turned out to be a fictional character from a New Yorker article I misread.” In a more serious aspect of the plot, highlighted by chapter headings that give the “Countdown to Damnation,” rigid Chrissy is unable to accept her son’s sexuality, his partner, or his plans—until finally, the virulent homophobia of her neighbors awakens a protective response. Actually, the opening of Chrissy’s mind begins when she eats several foil-wrapped packages of chocolate she finds in Ezra’s luggage that turn out to be infused with magic mushrooms. Lane's sophomore effort is over-the-top in so many clashing ways—like Schitt’s Creek meets The Laramie Project—but simpatico readers will likely throw reservations to the wind and go all in.
Come for the Applebee’s-sponsored rehearsal dinner and stay for the extended journey of a goat into the next life.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781250267146
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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