A story about good people doing their best to survive, combined with a message that will cause readers to close the book...
Hyde’s followers, who love the warmth and inspiration they draw from her work (Walk Me Home, 2013, etc.), won’t be disappointed by this latest effort.
August is on his way to Yellowstone to go camping, but his RV has broken down, leaving him and his small part–Jack Russell terrier, Woody, stranded in a one-horse desert town. While the mechanic, Wes, works on the vehicle, the science teacher frets that he won’t have enough money to make it to the park. He’s not going for pleasure, although that was the original purpose of the trip; instead, he’s transporting some of his son’s ashes so he can sprinkle them around the park. He and Phillip, who was killed in the car accident that led to the breakup of August’s marriage, had planned the trip together. Now it seems as though the RV’s engine repairs will eat up most of his cash. Then Wes makes August an offer he can’t refuse: Finish your trip, but take my two boys with you, and I won’t charge you anything. The boys, 12-year-old Seth, and Henry, 7, will go into the foster system if Wes, who's scheduled to serve 90 days in jail, can’t find an alternative. August refuses but finally relents, and what follows is a lifelong bond among a recovering alcoholic, a wise young boy who's been forced to play the grown-up since his mom walked out, and sweet but silent Henry. Hyde’s books can be almost relentlessly uplifting, but in her case, that’s not a bad thing. She does it well and manages to avoid bringing religion, schmaltz or improbable outcomes into the mix, instead relying on crisp, clean prose and a straightforward method of storytelling that has its own unique appeal.
A story about good people doing their best to survive, combined with a message that will cause readers to close the book feeling a bit more hopeful about humanity.Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4778-2001-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Lake Union/New Harvest
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Lots of summer sun warms this light, charming beach read.
When Ruth Cooperman retired from the cosmetics industry, she dreamed of settling down in a quirky, sleepy beachside town. Little did she know that lovely Provincetown on Cape Cod harbored so much drama.
It all begins when someone leaves a baby on the doorstep of Ruth’s summer rental house. Alarmed, Ruth calls Elise Douglas, the house’s owner. But Elise does not call the authorities. Instead, Elise, who has been trying to get pregnant for years, is utterly entranced by the baby, whom she names Mira. In short order, Mira upends the lives of nearly everyone in Provincetown. While Elise is besotted, her wife, Fern, is worried about Elise’s future heartbreak. Of course, Elise and Fern are also trying to run their business , Tea by the Sea, so they enlist Ruth, as well as other locals, to help babysit. Ruth’s seclusion erodes as her summer house fills up fast, as Elise and Fern move back in (so there's more space for Mira); Ruth’s adult daughter, Olivia, comes to visit; and Olivia invites her dad, Ruth’s ex-husband, Ben, to stay, too. Meanwhile, Bianca Barros, like the Wicked Witch of the West, keeps popping into the tea shop, angry that Elise and Fern bought her niece’s house. Yet Brenner (Drawing Home, 2019, etc.) keeps the tone light, avoiding dark dives into emotional waters. Instead, she deftly keeps all the plates spinning as Elise and Fern renegotiate their marital goals; Bianca’s brother, Tito, takes a shine to Ruth; his nephew, Marco, catches Olivia’s eye; Marco’s sister, Jaci, avoids the family business of emptying oyster traps by working at the tea shop; and Ruth notices Ben anew. Threading through all of the friendships and baby-juggling lies, of course, is the question of the summer: Who is Mira’s mother?
Lots of summer sun warms this light, charming beach read.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-47685-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one.
After the brutish family patriarch has a heart attack, the surviving Tuchmans (mostly) gather at his deathbed, each of them struggling to make sense of their past—and come to terms with their present.
“He was an angry man, and he was an ugly man,” the novel begins, “and he was tall, and he was pacing,” and this is how we meet Victor Tuchman in the moments before he collapses. And so the family begins to assemble: Alex, his daughter, a newly divorced lawyer, arrives in New Orleans from the Chicago suburbs; his long-suffering wife, Barbra, tiny and stoic, is already there. His son, Gary, is very notably absent, but Gary’s wife, Twyla—a family outlier, Southern and blonde—is in attendance, with her own family secrets. The novel takes place in one very long day but encompasses the entirety of lifetimes: Barbra’s life before marrying Victor and the life they led after; Alex’s unhappy Connecticut childhood and the growing gulf between her and her criminal father—irreconcilable, even in death. It encompasses Gary’s earnest attempt to build a stable family life, to escape his family through Twyla, and Twyla’s own search for meaning. Even the background characters have stories: the EMS worker who wants to move in with his girlfriend who doesn’t love him; the CVS cashier leaving for school in Atlanta next year. The Tuchmans won’t learn those stories, though, just as they won’t learn each other's, even the shared ones. Victor is the force that brings them together but also the rift that divides them. Alex wants the truth about her father, and Barbra won’t tell her; Gary wants the truth about his disintegrating marriage, and Twyla can’t explain. Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg (All Grown Up, 2017, etc.), poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive.
Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-544-82425-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
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