In this debut novel from Australian Kennedy (Dark Roots, 2008, etc.), a father takes his estranged daughter on a trek through the Tasmanian wilderness that proves spiritually, mentally and physically grueling, and not just for them.
Rich and Sandy met protesting the Franklin River Blockade, one of the most successful environmental protests in Australian history. Their marriage didn’t last. Now their daughter Sophie has become a skinny, goth teen exasperated with her pot-smoking, New-Agey mother’s nostalgia for her past activism. Having pursued nature photography in all corners of the globe, chased women to no real effect and now working as a TV video editor, Rich decides to reconnect with his daughter. What better way than to hike the wilderness he and his ex worked to save? Rich assumes, as only the absent father of a difficult teen could, that Sophie will be impressed. Out of defiance of her mother, Sophie agrees to go and Sandy reluctantly lets her. For distraction, Sandy takes off on a retreat to find her inner goddess. The hike is difficult, especially when Rich’s new, unbroken-in boots begin to chafe. While Rich hobbles through miles of wilderness trying to impress his cynical daughter, Sandy hilariously searches for answers in meditation sessions and sweat lodges, where she instead encounters the disembodied voice of her disapproving mother. Rich must come to terms with the reality that he’s not the outdoorsman—or, for that matter, the people person—he thought he was, a lesson that leads to potential catastrophe. Kennedy illustrates her characters’ vulnerabilities through a series of power plays and dramatic reversals—Rich attempts to cut the trip short, but Sophie, with a contrary, stubborn nature not unlike her parents’, insists they continue. Locked in mutual antipathy broken by bursts of sympathy, father and daughter move into increasingly dangerous territory. An intricately written novel with an ironic eye for modern vulnerability in the face of a primordial wilderness.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8021-7071-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Black Cat/Grove
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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