A fast-paced, contemplative but uneven rescue tale.
In this novel, a mountainside medical emergency brings an unlikely group together.
Sklar’s book opens with a dedication to frontline workers, especially medical professionals, for their service during the Covid-19 pandemic. The author explains that he was inspired by the heroism he observed during the pandemic while writing the novel. The story follows Andrew, a medical student from Denver, who goes to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for a medical rotation. There, he decides to join a hiking group climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (“Africa’s highest mountain would be a test of his dedication and resolve”). At the time of the hike, Andrew finds himself questioning his place in the group as well as observing his intriguing fellow climbers: Danish couple Klaus and Kara; some German fitness entrepreneurs seeking to prove their vitality to investors; Eve, an enthralling, beautiful Peace Corps volunteer with her Stanford-educated boyfriend, Barry; and their local guides and porters Salaam, Mohammed, and Koba. When Barry develops a severe case of mountain sickness, Andrew and Koba must risk their lives to transport him to medical help. The tale centers on the conflicts and dynamics that emerge when the group faces this medical emergency. Will individual motivations interfere with the collective effort of saving a life? Sklar explores the aftermath of this difficult, life-changing event as Andrew and Eve confront complicated romantic situations, their lives intertwined irrevocably with those of their fellow climbers and each other. The swiftly paced novel deftly emphasizes themes of fear, compassion, and self-actualization. But facets of the story that relate to representation could have been improved. Characters from Africa in the tale are mostly referred to as African instead of disclosing their cultural backgrounds or nationalities. Eve, much fantasized about by the male players, seems like a fulfillment of the manic dream girl trope: Readers rarely see her reflect on her own career and personal life as much as on her romantic experiences with men. Still, the author adds some crucial nuances, making a point to include a conversation on Western ideas of Africa and how they differ from reality as well as how gender plays a role in women’s career expectations. The story’s greatest strength lies in its portrayal of how diverse lives intersect during an emergency.
A fast-paced, contemplative but uneven rescue tale.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73234-843-1
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Volcano Cannon Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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