An affecting assemblage of tales that deftly dramatize the ghastly costs of violence.
Three narratives—two novellas and a short story—explore the struggles warriors face.
In the first of Bartley’s novellas, A Season Past, an infamous gunfighter, Coltrane, sells his prospecting land in Alaska and moves to Crystal, Utah, in search of peace and solitude. But that tranquility proves exasperatingly elusive—wherever he goes, his reputation precedes him, and he’s always met with a mixture of fear and hostility. Coltrane does his best to keep to himself, doggedly haunted by nightmares of past violence, but Sheriff Bryant holds a grudge against him for killing his uncle and remains committed to driving him out of town. Meanwhile, Coltrane develops feelings for Elisabeth, a woman engaged to one of the local deputies, a romantic opportunity as enticing as it seems doomed. In the second novella, The Cold Ardennes, an unnamed protagonist returns from fighting in World War II to a Texas town where he is now a stranger. He’s warned that “strangers in this town don’t stand a chance.” He struggles to find work, and is pulled into a bank heist by a girl named Sally, who sent him a Dear John letter while he was overseas. And in the short story “Those Apache Tears,” a young park ranger, Nikki-Boy, wrestles with the consequences of his military service in Vietnam. He’s a Native American and his own people refuse to celebrate his laudable efforts, resentful that he’s become a “pawn” of a government that has historically oppressed them. While each of the author’s artfully melancholic stories can be read independently of the others, the group is thematically united by an unsentimental appraisal of combat. As the protagonist of the second novella plainly but poignantly puts it: “Sir, there was nothing adventurous about killing. It was hard, slogging, ugly work that never got easier the more you did it. It involved a lot of mud and cold and noise during the artillery barrages. Men don’t die easily, they never do.”
Bartley’s writing is poetically threadbare and powerful—he eludes the common temptation to tell a romanticized tale about heroic triumph. Instead, he unflinchingly presents the grimness of fighting in all of its ugliness, and the ways in which it bedraggles the souls of its participants. For example, Coltrane never permits himself a moment of idealistic self-delusion: “But he knew he had never been a hero. He had tried to kill the men who were trying to kill him. That was all.” The short story is the weakest of the bunch, and the most laboriously didactic—it flirts dangerously with delivering a moralistic sermon while its companion tales show more than tell. But overall, the book is a candid look not only at the damage done to warriors, but also the harsh reception they often receive from those for whom they offered their sacrifices.
An affecting assemblage of tales that deftly dramatize the ghastly costs of violence.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78036-393-6
Page Count: 361
Publisher: Peach Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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