Dixon writes convincing prose, particularly dialogue, but the plot, with its pointed references to Dissociative Identity...
In scriptwriter Dixon’s first novel, a man must confront the gaping holes in his childhood memories once he becomes a husband and father.
Working in hotel management in London, Justin Fisher never thinks much about why he has lost contact with his family in California. Then in 2005 he accepts a job in Santa Monica. Taking his wife Amy and baby to visit his parents at the Fisher family home at 822 Lima St. in nearby Sierra Madre, he is shocked to discover that his father has died, and that no one remembers Justin. He is even more shocked at the cemetery when he finds a gravestone marked with his name, and claiming that he died at age three. Cut to 822 Lima St. in the 1970s: Caroline Fisher has a brief affair with a friend of her husband Robert and becomes pregnant. But Caroline, the insecure product of a broken home, is desperate to keep her marriage together for the sake of her two daughters. When Robert discovers three-year-old Justin is not his son and goes behind Caroline’s back to get rid of him, Caroline feels helpless to stop him. She never forgives Robert for secretly giving Justin away but stays married for the sake of her daughters, who innocently see Robert as the victimized spouse. Back in the present, adult Justin is increasingly troubled by his inability to connect his disjointed memories of childhood into a whole. Through therapy, he begins to remember not only his first three years but the rest of his childhood: being lovingly cared for by a red-haired woman who called him TJ until a car accident took her away when he was five, then growing up in foster care. Finally he remembers the terrible third trauma that caused him to forget so much. As his memory returns, he and Amy face a crisis in their marriage.
Dixon writes convincing prose, particularly dialogue, but the plot, with its pointed references to Dissociative Identity Disorder, has a manufactured quality.Pub Date: March 23, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-53063-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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