A sweeping, poignant tale of love, war, and the pain of political disenchantment.
An idealistic soldier deployed to Iraq and his new wife wrestle with the emotional fallout of an ugly, protracted war in Gelberg’s (Fertility, 2013, etc.) novel.
Tomas Jorgensen and Sunny Adler were sweethearts in high school, and remained so when they both graduated from college in 2003. In some ways, though, they couldn’t be more different—Tomas is a patriotic West Point cadet, and Sunny is a student at Vassar College, preparing for a career in education. His graduation speech is delivered by Vice President Dick Cheney and offers a rousing call to public duty, while hers is by writer Susan Sontag, who inspires the crowd with a dissident’s critique of government. They marry at the West Point chapel in the Jewish faith—Maj. Arnold Weinstein, a rabbi who serves as the couple’s spiritual mentor, officiates the ceremony—and the two settle into a new life together. In the beginning, their principal challenge is prolonged separation; after Tomas’ first post at Fort Drum in upstate New York, he’s selected for Army Ranger school in Georgia. Sunny throws herself into her new job as a first-grade teacher and into maintaining the household to dampen the pain of his absence. Meanwhile, Tomas, excited and anxious about the prospect of combat, finally gets orders to deploy with his brigade to Iraq. Soon, though, he and his fellow troops are enraged by the incompetence and mendacity of the nation’s political leadership and demoralized by mounting casualties. Gelberg demonstrates extraordinary restraint, allowing the couple’s collective disillusionment to build slowly but affectingly. The tenderness of their love, and its resilience, are truly endearing, and their relationship is captured in simple but often powerful prose. For example, the terrifying possibility that Tomas could die yanks Sunny into a reality that she hasn’t thought through; she tells Tomas before his deployment: “All those field exercises, I knew you loved them. The whole thing seemed like an elaborate version of man-camp.” But that “man-camp” was training for war, and Gelberg goes on to show that both Tomas and Sunny are emotionally unprepared for the danger he faces. Overall, this is a story that transcends political partisanship, and it’s resonant because it manages to be not only topical, but also timeless.
A sweeping, poignant tale of love, war, and the pain of political disenchantment.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5397-7127-2
Page Count: 392
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
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
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