A slow, sure novel that burns away the glamor of war.
A fictionalized account of the life of Norman Bethune, the Canadian war physician.
The narrative, composed of a series of letters, begins at the end of Bethune’s life. Addressed to a daughter he has never seen, Bethune’s letters at first seem merely informative. They include rambling accounts of growing up as the son of a strict minister, his eventual break with his father’s religion, his first unhappy marriage and, finally, his decision to fight in World War I and then join the republican cause as a doctor in the Spanish Civil War. The letters are framed by his current life at a makeshift hospital in China where he aids Chairman Mao’s campaign to drive the nationalists out of the mainland. Action-packed to be sure, and yet, the letters become more searching, weaving together world events with a history of Bethune’s love affair with Kajsa, a Swedish woman he meets in Spain during the war who becomes the mother of his daughter. Bock’s masterful narration gives a sense of the urgency of this world-changing moment, and of the exhilaration of being a player on a world stage, and from this emerges an unexpected portrait of Bethune as a manipulative narcissist who specializes in hiding his pettiness under a cloak of disinterested nobility. Bedazzled by war, Bethune trembles with awe when he meets Mao, but he cannot manage to maintain even the semblance of good relations with colleagues who are at least as committed as he to serving a common cause. Blind to everything but his high motives, he does not seem to register that Kajsa is under suspicion of being a spy. The novel’s strength lies in its masterful revelation of Bethune’s paradoxical combination of dishonesty and highmindedness. Bock (The Ash Garden, 2001) paints a picture of a fundamentally amoral, if politically pious, man who does not see that he loves war more than he loves peace.
A slow, sure novel that burns away the glamor of war.Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2007
ISBN: 1-4000-4462-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
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.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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