So many cars and guns, so many screw-ups, so many dead bodies—they all blur together after a while.
Schwarz’s fictionalized biography of Bonnie Parker, who, with Clyde Barrow, gained notoriety as part of a wave of Depression-era outlaws, will divide readers along generational lines.
For those too young to remember the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde, this play-by-play account of the couple’s far-from-successful criminal career offers a grim introduction to a gang of characters hopelessly downtrodden, psychopathic, or sometimes both. Readers who came of age around the time of the iconic film—a mix of comedy, graphic violence, and visual romanticism that made outlaws into larger-than-life romantic figures—will see Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway on every page (as when Bonnie notices Clyde’s dimple for the first time) and will wonder at the necessity of this ploddingly detailed, all-too-earthbound retelling. But the novel’s opening offers even those who remember the movie a fresh, touching view of Bonnie before Clyde—the bright, sensitive child more plucky than headstrong evolving into a young woman still innocent but with “big dreams, no patience.” Briefly married at 16, Bonnie is waitressing in Dallas, Texas, when she meets Clyde, whose courtship is charming and conventional in its first weeks until he’s arrested while sleeping on her (always devoted) mother’s couch. Sent to jail in March 1930, Clyde convinces Bonnie to help him escape. Recaptured, he’s sent to a harsher prison. When he’s released two years later, they hit the road, living off Clyde’s robberies, which often go wrong and sometimes end in someone’s death. They’re joined in their dreary capers by a few hardened criminals but mostly by boys like W.D., riding along for the excitement until implicated too deeply to easily leave. By 1934, Bonnie is destitute, in constant pain from a car accident, drinking and popping pills. Still committed to deluded loser Clyde, she continues writing romantic poetry although her own romantic illusions evaporated long ago.
So many cars and guns, so many screw-ups, so many dead bodies—they all blur together after a while.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4545-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
A touching portrait of courage and friendship.
A lifetime of friendship endures many upheavals.
Ellie and Homa, two young girls growing up in Tehran, meet at school in the early 1950s. Though their families are very different, they become close friends. After the death of Ellie’s father, she and her difficult mother must adapt to their reduced circumstances. Homa’s more warm and loving family lives a more financially constrained life, and her father, a communist, is politically active—to his own detriment and that of his family’s welfare. When Ellie’s mother remarries and she and Ellie relocate to a more exclusive part of the city, the girls become separated. They reunite years later when Homa is admitted to Ellie’s elite high school. Now a political firebrand with aspirations to become a judge and improve the rights of women in her factionalized homeland, Homa works toward scholastic success and begins practicing political activism. Ellie follows a course, plotted originally by her mother, toward marriage. The tortuous path of the girls’ adult friendship over the following decades is played out against regime change, political persecution, and devastating loss. Ellie’s well-intentioned but naïve approach stands in stark contrast to Homa’s commitment to human rights, particularly for women, and her willingness to risk personal safety to secure those rights. As narrated by Ellie, the girls’ story incorporates frequent references to Iranian food, customs, and beliefs common in the years of tumult and reforms accompanying the Iranian Revolution. Themes of jealousy—even in close friendships—and the role of the shir zan, the courageous “lion women” of Iran who effect change, recur through the narrative. The heartaches associated with emigration are explored along with issues of personal sacrifice for the sake of the greater good (no matter how remote it may seem).
A touching portrait of courage and friendship.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781668036587
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.
When a man accused of rape turns up dead, an Early American town seeks justice amid rumors and controversy.
Lawhon’s fifth work of historical fiction is inspired by the true story and diaries of midwife Martha Ballard of Hallowell, Maine, a character she brings to life brilliantly here. As Martha tells her patient in an opening chapter set in 1789, “You need not fear….In all my years attending women in childbirth, I have never lost a mother.” This track record grows in numerous compelling scenes of labor and delivery, particularly one in which Martha has to clean up after the mistakes of a pompous doctor educated at Harvard, one of her nemeses in a town that roils with gossip and disrespect for women’s abilities. Supposedly, the only time a midwife can testify in court is regarding paternity when a woman gives birth out of wedlock—but Martha also takes the witness stand in the rape case against a dead man named Joshua Burgess and his living friend Col. Joseph North, whose role as judge in local court proceedings has made the victim, Rebecca Foster, reluctant to make her complaint public. Further complications are numerous: North has control over the Ballard family's lease on their property; Rebecca is carrying the child of one of her rapists; Martha’s son was seen fighting with Joshua Burgess on the day of his death. Lawhon weaves all this into a richly satisfying drama that moves suspensefully between childbed, courtroom, and the banks of the Kennebec River. The undimmed romance between 40-something Martha and her husband, Ephraim, adds a racy flair to the proceedings. Knowing how rare the quality of their relationship is sharpens the intensity of Martha’s gaze as she watches the romantic lives of her grown children unfold. As she did with Nancy Wake in Code Name Hélène (2020), Lawhon creates a stirring portrait of a real-life heroine and, as in all her books, includes an endnote with detailed background.
A vivid, exciting page-turner from one of our most interesting authors of historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780385546874
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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