Perla, the narrator of the second novel by De Robertis (The Invisible Mountain, 2009), is a young university student who’s...
The ghost of Argentina’s Dirty War quite literally haunts a woman whose father supported the junta’s brutality.
Perla, the narrator of the second novel by De Robertis (The Invisible Mountain, 2009), is a young university student who’s spent much of her life keeping a dark secret: Her father was a naval officer who during the late 1970s and early ’80s helped round up the “disappeared,” dissidents who were arrested and executed by the military regime, often dropped into the Atlantic Ocean from airplanes. That dark history has shaped her friendships and complicated her romantic relationship with a journalist investigating the Dirty War. But that legacy becomes unavoidable to her when a man appears in Perla’s home, soaked and dank-smelling and constantly thirsty. He’s a ghost of one of the disappeared, but also quite real: The water that he can’t shake off soaks the apartment. His surreal presence unlocks a host of memories for Perla, and the novel alternates between her perspective, as she recalls her difficult relationship with her father, and the stranger’s perspective, as he recalls the horrific rapes and other abuses he suffered while in military custody. The tone is mournful, but the book is as much romance as tragedy: De Robertis favors long, luxurious sentences that help give the novel a sense of uplift. That style makes for a few fecund, overwritten passages, but on the whole the story is remarkably convincing: The ghost is an effective metaphor for the history Perla’s family can’t suppress, and De Robertis is clearly attuned to the afteraffects of the dictatorship on contemporary Argentina, where it still fills books, newspapers and TV reports. We are products of our times, she means to say, but past history isn’t necessarily our destiny.Pub Date: March 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-59959-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2012
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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