by Carolyn Chute ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1999
Another blast of proletarian rage from Chute, but lacking, regrettably, the solid characterizations that anchored Merry Men (1994) and The Beans of Egypt, Maine (1985). Generally considered a left-wing writer, Chute here declares herself “no-wing” [Acknowledgments] as she depicts the odyssey of a putative rightist from Maine whose heroes are Latin American guerrillas. Robert Drummond has assassinated US Senator Kip Davies in a Boston hotel; four fellow members of the Snow Men militia are dead, but the badly wounded Robert finds his way to the Beacon Hill home of another senator, liberal Jerry Creighton. He’s sheltered there by the Kristy Creighton, the senator’s daughter, and her mother, Connie, both of whom find the militia man as sexually irresistible as he is politically disturbing. The plot (never Chute’s strong point) consists basically of Robert’s convalescence over a month or so as he enlightens the privileged Creighton women about the ugly realities of American life and as the FBI closes in. In the past, Chute’s fiery denunciations of corporate capitalism’s impact on poor people have worked in tandem with strong fictional portraits. Here, the upper-middle-class Kristy and Connie are embarrassing clichÇs with insufficiently delineated inner lives; the spiritual crisis that has brought Kristy home from her job as chair of a women’s studies program, for example, is alluded to but never explained. Robert is a fuller character, and Chute commendably refuses to clean up his messy opinions (dead-on observations about the way politicians of all parties serve big business mixed with creepy diatribes against “this fuckin” socialist setup” and “arrogant bitch broad” feminists). But the novel’s politics are as incoherent as Drummond’s—making for an aesthetic and, arguably, a moral failure. Chute’s blunt class-consciousness and energetic prose are as bracing as ever. Let’s hope that the longer work-in-progress she refers to in the Author’s Note (—the ‘true story” of the ‘Militia Movement” in New England as I have experienced it—) makes better use of them.
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-100390-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2004
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2012
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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