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The Blitz Business

Name: The Blitz Business
Author: D.A. Spruzen
ISBN: 978-1-63393-268-5

by D.A. Spruzen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2016

Despite the rousing historical background, this sentimental orphan tale remains grim.

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A mentally disabled boy tries to navigate his way through World War II–era Britain in this historical novel.

Spruzen’s (Lily Takes the Field, 2013, etc.) latest work begins during the Blitz; teenage Jamie Jenkins resides with his grandmother, who makes a scarce living cleaning houses, and his abusive cousin Roy Beck. Jamie’s mental “slowness” makes him oblivious to much of the depravity that goes on around him, but a German bomb destroys any protection from the real world he might have had. After the attack, Jamie’s life takes a Dickensian turn. He loses his grandmother and is passed from one terrible guardian to another, including a murderous farmer and an unfeeling home for the disabled. Meanwhile, Roy finds out Jamie knows one of his dark secrets and begins tracking him down to protect it. Eventually, their journeys intersect with a German spy’s mission, and Jamie faces life-or-death consequences. Along the way, he struggles to understand each situation he finds himself in and, with the help of a few kind friends, learns to leave his own mark on the world despite his many disadvantages. The well-researched story delivers some well-rounded characters and a few surprises. Although Jamie is mostly portrayed as a stereotypical innocent, simple-minded victim à la Oliver Twist, he gains some agency toward the book’s end as he constantly strives to make himself “more clever.” Unfortunately, he still spends most of the novel being shuffled from one terrible experience to another with very little say in the matter, which makes for a disheartening read. “A little of this and a little of that. That’s people,” Jamie observes about human morality. Yet far too many of the characters are only one thing—angelic martyrs or evil tyrants. And Jamie remains trapped between them, constantly being abused by the latter and saved by the former.

Despite the rousing historical background, this sentimental orphan tale remains grim.

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-63393-268-5

Page Count: 248

Publisher: Koehler Books

Review Posted Online: July 14, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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LAST ORDERS

by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996

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Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.