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DELPHI

Re-creates the particular frustration, tedium, and fear of 2020 and 2021 with depressing verisimilitude.

A British classics professor intersperses her lockdown diary with a taxonomy of ancient systems of prophecy.

The unnamed narrator of Pollard’s debut novel titles each of her short chapters with a method of foretelling the future, starting with “Theomancy: Prophecy by Foretelling Events” and ending with “Dactylomancy: Prophecy by Means of Finger Movements.” Upon a random check, even the kookier-sounding ones—“Urticariaomancy: Prophecy by Itches,” “Ololygmancy: Prophecy by the Howling of Dogs”—are authentic. The entries narrate experiences and emotions familiar from our recent collective experiment in uncertainty, from home schooling to craft cocktails to Zoom exhaustion and news addiction. In fact, except for some slight variations since the book is set in the U.K., it all feels so familiar and real that it has the feeling of a time capsule that’s been opened many years too soon—though Pollard, the author of six books of poetry, is at pains to bookend her narrative with assurances that it is fictional. The narrator teaches a screenful of students with their cameras off, deals with her 10-year-old son's increasing dependence on screens even as she follows on her own screen the unfolding nightmares of Sarah Everard (a young woman who was murdered in London) and Donald Trump. She tries an I Ching app, visits an online psychic, does tarot readings. She keeps getting the family happiness card even as her husband steps up his drinking and the marriage frays. Finally she decides to jump the fence and go for a walk only to run into an acquaintance who complains about her au pair, leading her to rush home in horror. “I haven’t missed small talk” is one of many wry, relatable moments—but these might be funnier later on. Here and there, big plot elements drop in like stones, with little buildup or aftermath, including a last-minute bit of terrifying melodrama with mythic overtones.

Re-creates the particular frustration, tedium, and fear of 2020 and 2021 with depressing verisimilitude.

Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022

ISBN: 9781982197896

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Avid Reader Press

Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Life lessons.

Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.

Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.

Pub Date: July 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-345-46750-7

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004

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