bookshelf

VALLEY FORGE

Name: VALLEY FORGE
Author: David Garland
ISBN: 0-312-32722-6

A NOVEL OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

by David Garland ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2006

A stick-figure cast speaking hopelessly wooden dialogue drains the life out of Garland’s tale—and the rest is history.

bookshelf

In book two of Garland’s saga (after Saratoga, 2005), the Brits frolic, the rebels freeze and the author falters.

Valley Forge—by now, it’s a great big iconic lump of a story that if treated conventionally will murder any attention span. So there’s Captain Jamie Skoyles (conventionally intrepid) of His Majesty’s 24th Foot, languishing in Cambridge, Mass., a prisoner of war, having been taken during the Battle of Saratoga. Unable to abide that shame, intrepid Jamie escapes: “Because it’s our duty as British soldiers,” he explains to a friend. Accompanied by his sweetheart, the almost, but not quite, as intrepid Elizabeth (she’s only a woman, after all), he makes his way to Philadelphia, where the skylarking General William Howe enjoys to the hilt the role of conqueror. Kept at bay is General George Washington’s brave but out-gunned band of insurrectionists. Valley Forge, 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia, is, of course, famously unpropitious as a place to spend a winter. Ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-fed, the penned-up Continentals grow increasingly ill-tempered due to an unappreciative and unforthcoming—in terms of the necessaries—Congress. Depression takes hold, desertions mount and yet the rag-tag army and the “damnably deficient Washington” have managed to distract Howe and his minions from their old time in the occupied city. Howe needs someone to get close to Washington, he tells Jamie, to “bamboozle” him, search out his weaknesses. Jamie agrees to become a spy, and so adept at it is he that the heretofore astute American general buys into an implausible cover and, if not actually bamboozled, teeters on the edge. And so it goes.

A stick-figure cast speaking hopelessly wooden dialogue drains the life out of Garland’s tale—and the rest is history.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-312-32722-6

Page Count: 320

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2006

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Hulu’s ‘We Were the Lucky Ones’ Adds To Cast

bookshelf

MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

bookshelf

Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.

Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.