Clark has talent and energy to burn. But she’s burning both up in wasteful displays of gratuitous pyrotechnics.
A seduced and abandoned maiden’s tribulations in early 18th-century London are recounted with almost frightening gusto in the British author’s successor to her debut historical novel, The Great Stink (2005).
When teenaged Eliza Tally is rejected by the well-born lover who impregnated her, then “married” her only nominally, Eliza’s pragmatic mother sends her away to become maid to London apothecary Grayson Black, whose truculent wife manages the household and savagely mistreats Eliza and her “half-witted” companion servant Mary. Eliza’s pregnancy is also endangered by the unwelcome attentions of Black’s oafish apprentice Edgar Pettigrew—and by her increasing suspicions that scientific researches undertaken by the secretive Black are disturbingly related to his interest in her services. The narrative of Eliza’s experiences and discoveries is juxtaposed with Black’s research notes and correspondence, from which we learn that he is studying “effects of strong emotions, fear, desire, and such like, upon the physical form of a foetus”; furthermore, using pregnant females as laboratory animals, to learn what “monsters” they may produce. The roots of Black’s obsession lie in the circumstances of his own birth: a story Clark (unwisely) declines to tell. Instead, she concocts a raving melodrama (precisely and impressively researched, but almost insanely lurid). It’s a compound of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders, in which too many characters are drooling or malformed grotesques and virtually every scene is a festering sewer (the spectacle of St. Paul’s Cathedral being a hopeful exception), with numerous incidents plunging into stomach-churning visceral and excretory detail. Eliza perseveres, thanks to an initially benign bookseller, thwarted by the malevolent Ms. Black, ennobled by her protective affection for the pathetic Mary (whose own history holds secrets eventually disclosed). And all falls apart, in a climax so absurd it would seem excessive in the lamest of bodice-rippers.
Clark has talent and energy to burn. But she’s burning both up in wasteful displays of gratuitous pyrotechnics.Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-15-101206-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2007
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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