Loose sequel to Quinn's debut novel, Ishmael (1992), the odd and controversial winner of the $500,000 Turner Tomorrow Award. In Ishmael, a young neophyte more or less accidentally apprenticed himself to a great talking ape, allowing Quinn to string together a series of Socratic dialogues on mankind's woes. Here, the device is much the same. We meet a young Laurentian priest, Jared Osbourne, who notes early on that the Laurentians still observe an old injunction: to watch for the appearance of the Antichrist. Jared is sent by his superior to investigate an itinerant European preacher known as B, a.k.a. Charles Atterley. Atterley isn't satanic in the least, however, nor even very religious, so the ``Antichrist'' tag is just a platform for Quinn to do his own preaching, which is reminiscent of the ape's declamations in Ishmael. When B is assassinated for his views, it makes little sense in terms of the plot, since all B does is talk (and talk)—he doesn't cast spells or plot world dominion. He talks about how primitive cultures were divided up into ``Leavers'' and ``Takers,'' how these ancient archetypes are still working themselves out, and how overpopulation will, in the next century, come near to obliterating us all. Modern agriculture, which Quinn thinks of as ``totalitarian'' because it's so divorced from nature, will not address the needs of 12 billion people (the UN estimate of how many of us there will be by 2040). The novel's format is artificial and far-fetched, but no matter: The author writes a facile, clear prose, and the ideas he wants to discuss are admittedly important. Quinn is a provocative thinker. Imagine a combination of Robert M. Pirsig for style, Ayn Rand for cardboard characters on soapboxes, and the Unabomber for a nature-centered but slightly menacing feel. The combination equals Quinn, and makes for a helluva rant.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-553-10053-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1996
Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one.
After the brutish family patriarch has a heart attack, the surviving Tuchmans (mostly) gather at his deathbed, each of them struggling to make sense of their past—and come to terms with their present.
“He was an angry man, and he was an ugly man,” the novel begins, “and he was tall, and he was pacing,” and this is how we meet Victor Tuchman in the moments before he collapses. And so the family begins to assemble: Alex, his daughter, a newly divorced lawyer, arrives in New Orleans from the Chicago suburbs; his long-suffering wife, Barbra, tiny and stoic, is already there. His son, Gary, is very notably absent, but Gary’s wife, Twyla—a family outlier, Southern and blonde—is in attendance, with her own family secrets. The novel takes place in one very long day but encompasses the entirety of lifetimes: Barbra’s life before marrying Victor and the life they led after; Alex’s unhappy Connecticut childhood and the growing gulf between her and her criminal father—irreconcilable, even in death. It encompasses Gary’s earnest attempt to build a stable family life, to escape his family through Twyla, and Twyla’s own search for meaning. Even the background characters have stories: the EMS worker who wants to move in with his girlfriend who doesn’t love him; the CVS cashier leaving for school in Atlanta next year. The Tuchmans won’t learn those stories, though, just as they won’t learn each other's, even the shared ones. Victor is the force that brings them together but also the rift that divides them. Alex wants the truth about her father, and Barbra won’t tell her; Gary wants the truth about his disintegrating marriage, and Twyla can’t explain. Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg (All Grown Up, 2017, etc.), poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive.
Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-544-82425-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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An interesting premise imperfectly executed.
A Jewish trapeze artist and a Dutch unwed mother bond, after much aerial practice, as the circus comes to Nazi-occupied France.
Ingrid grew up in a Jewish circus family in Darmstadt, Germany. In 1934, she marries Erich, a German officer, and settles in Berlin. In 1942, as the war and Holocaust escalate, Erich is forced to divorce Ingrid. She returns to Darmstadt to find that her family has disappeared. A rival German circus clan, led by its patriarch, Herr Neuhoff, takes her in, giving her a stage name, Astrid, and forged Aryan papers. As she rehearses for the circus’ coming French tour, she once again experiences the freedom of an accomplished aerialist, even as her age, late 20s, catches up with her. The point of view shifts (and will alternate throughout) to Noa, a Dutch teenager thrown out by her formerly loving father when she gets pregnant by a German soldier. After leaving the German unwed mothers’ home where her infant has been taken away, either for the Reich’s Lebensborn adoption program or a worse fate, Noa finds work sweeping a train station. When she comes upon a boxcar full of dead or dying infants, she impulsively grabs one who resembles her own child, later naming him Theo. By chance, Noa and Theo are also rescued by Neuhoff, who offers her refuge in the circus, provided she can learn the trapeze. The tour begins with a stop in Thiers, France. Astrid is still leery of her new apprentice, but Noa catches on quickly and soon must replace Astrid in the act due to the risk that a Nazi spectator might recognize her. Noa falls in love with the mayor’s son, Luc, who Astrid suspects is a collaborator. Astrid’s Russian lover, Peter, a clown, tempts fate with a goose-stepping satire routine, and soon the circus will afford little protection to anybody. The diction seems too contemporary for the period, and the degree of danger the characters are in is more often summarized than demonstrated.
An interesting premise imperfectly executed.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7783-1981-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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