A well-executed tale of abuse, empowerment, and healing.
A woman finds her way out of an abusive relationship and makes peace with her past.
In this debut contemporary novel, Zane tells the story of Sarah Jenkins, a wife, mother, and English teacher. In the book’s first chapters, Sarah does not understand that her husband, Robert, usually away from home on extended work trips, is an emotional abuser whenever he is present. Robert’s nature is obvious to readers from the opening pages, as the author’s close narration of Sarah’s thoughts makes it clear how desperately she strives to avoid upsetting Robert and how much of herself she sacrifices in the process. As Robert escalates to physical violence, Sarah draws back from her friends. (“You can’t let her see what a mess you’ve made of things. She wouldn’t want to be friends with you anymore.”) But fellow mother Kate and co-worker Maggie eventually team up to make Sarah face her situation and deal with the unresolved issues of her childhood that have left her willing to put up with an untenable family life. When matters reach a crisis point, Sarah eventually learns to rely on her friends’ support; to make the right decisions for herself and her young daughter, Lizzy; and to stop worrying about the reactions of Robert’s wealthy and judgmental mother. (“ ‘It was the best party, Lizzy,’ Cynthia said. ‘Bestest isn’t a word.’ ”) Zane, a therapist and former nurse, does an excellent job of capturing the raw emotions of her characters and even succeeds in making Robert, the clear villain of the tale, marginally sympathetic when readers learn about the secret he has spent years concealing. The result is a satisfying and cathartic work of women’s fiction that offers an engaging and easy-to-get-into read, perfect for fans of authors Susan Wiggs and Holly Chamberlain. Although it can be painful to read the intimate depictions of emotional abuse, Zane allows the audience to feel like part of Sarah’s support network rather than a voyeur and to ultimately enjoy a difficult story.
A well-executed tale of abuse, empowerment, and healing.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63152-403-5
Page Count: 261
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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