A moving, disturbing, and hilarious story of postwar rural America.
A Scandinavian community experiences trials and small triumphs in this novel set in post–World War II Minnesota.
Capable Tia Fiskum, unlike many other young people in Tolga Township, longs to one day take over her family’s farm. Her dreams are shattered, though, when the man she loves, Clyde Hanson, marries a town girl, Vera, who’s repulsed by farm life and dreams of running away to California. Meanwhile, Frieda Carlson, the young German wife of a war veteran, struggles with her English and the provincialism of her Norwegian neighbors. When Tia’s brother Norman returns from the army, everyone assumes that he’ll take over the farm that Tia covets. But his alcoholism and wanderlust instead drive Tia to shield Norman from scandal—particularly from Tillie, the eavesdropping town gossip. It was Norman who planted the shelterbelts, rows of trees that form a windbreak, around the town. Just as some of those trees have fallen while others have remained upright, some of the residents of Tolga Township fall to tragedy while others draw upon reserves of strength from unlikely sources—even the supernatural: when Nels Carlson claims a miraculous recovery from arthritis, the town’s good Lutherans fear that he’s become a fanatic. This latest novel by Simar (Blooming Prairie, 2012, etc.) is an engrossing portrayal of Norwegian farmers whose passive aggression tamps down their real passions. Each chapter is written from a different point of view, some in first person and some in third, and through them, Simar weaves a tale of longing, jealousy, rage, lies, and joy. Although the characters often back-stab one another, they also come together with genuine warmth when one of them is in trouble. Characters that could have been clichéd are instead made fresh by Simar’s revelations of their fears and hopes. The humor is appropriately subtle and sarcastic, and the descriptions (“Gunda Olson unfolded from the kitchen chair like a rusty pocket knife”) are delightful.
A moving, disturbing, and hilarious story of postwar rural America.Pub Date: May 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-87839-817-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Real events like the Vietnam draft and Stonewall uprising enter the characters' family history as well as a stunning plot...
The Owens sisters are back—not in their previous guise as elderly aunties casting spells in Hoffman’s occult romance Practical Magic (1995), but as fledgling witches in the New York City captured in Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids.
In that magical, mystical milieu, Franny and Bridget are joined by a new character: their foxy younger brother, Vincent, whose “unearthly” charm sends grown women in search of love potions. Heading into the summer of 1960, the three Owens siblings are ever more conscious of their family's quirkiness—and not just the incidents of levitation and gift for reading each other's thoughts while traipsing home to their parents' funky Manhattan town house. The instant Franny turns 17, they are all shipped off to spend the summer with their mother's aunt in Massachusetts. Isabelle Owens might enlist them for esoteric projects like making black soap or picking herbs to cure a neighbor's jealousy, but she at least offers respite from their fretful mother's strict rules against going shoeless, bringing home stray birds, wandering into Greenwich Village, or falling in love. In short order, the siblings meet a know-it-all Boston cousin, April, who brings them up to speed on the curse set in motion by their Salem-witch ancestor, Maria Owens. It spells certain death for males who attempt to woo an Owens woman. Naturally this knowledge does not deter the current generation from circumventing the rule—Bridget most passionately, Franny most rationally, and Vincent most recklessly (believing his gender may protect him). In time, the sisters ignore their mother's plea and move to Greenwich Village, setting up an apothecary, while their rock-star brother, who glimpsed his future in Isabelle’s nifty three-way mirror, breaks hearts like there's no tomorrow. No one's more confident or entertaining than Hoffman at putting across characters willing to tempt fate for true love.
Real events like the Vietnam draft and Stonewall uprising enter the characters' family history as well as a stunning plot twist—delivering everything fans of a much-loved book could hope for in a prequel.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3747-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.
Book 2 of Hearne's latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.
In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it's confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, fire-giant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne's light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.
A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-345-54857-3
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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