A poetic novel that effectively integrates elements of science fiction, fantasy and drama.
In this mystical novel, a girl finds herself torn between her own reality and an alternate world she’s created in her own mind.
This debut novel opens with Martina waking up in the woods, with no memory of what has happened to her. She wanders toward the home of a woman named Ginetta, who tells her about different events from her past. Martina has no recollection of them, and Ginetta seems surprised and disappointed; it’s clear that something odd has happened to Martina’s mind. Over time, Martina begins to have scattered memories—most notably of a child named Edi. Corna’s elegant attention to detail allows readers to immerse themselves in the setting: “[T]he cicadas pushed their singing from bush to bush, far away. Intense flavors came to her nose.” The novel’s second section focuses on Martina’s teenage years in a northern Italian city. Her family situation remains unclear; random friends come in and out of her life, and some are dying from drug abuse. After Martina has a strange reaction from trying some “smoke,” she feels alienated by the local townspeople. These scenes, which initially seem misplaced, offer insight into Martina’s past while spinning a web of confusion, and the author fills them with strong, scenic prose. The third section jumps back further to Martina’s childhood, and reveals the details of Martina’s odd memory problems. As a child, Martina has frequent conversations with animals, which upsets her parents and causes her classmates to see her as strange. As a punishment, her father locks her in a closet for two hours each day; surprisingly, Martina begins to enjoy it, using the time to have vivid dreams that take her to the world of Edi and Ginetta. The final section reveals that her imagination may not be completely fictional, as her dreams and reality collide. The novel keeps readers asking questions throughout, but its fragmented style often means that the puzzles never quite fit back together. However, readers who enjoy introspective, philosophical stories will likely enjoy it.
A poetic novel that effectively integrates elements of science fiction, fantasy and drama.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481146487
Page Count: 228
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Three bridegrooms for three sisters: Roberts (True Betrayals, 1995, etc.) stylishly moseys into Big Sky romance. Jack Mercy was a mean son of a bitch when he was alive, and as a corpse, buried with his Stetson and his bullwhip, he's not much better. According to his will, his three daughters, who've never met and whom Jack had by three different wives, must live together for a year at his big Montana ranch house in order to win their inheritance. During the long winter, the women bicker and bond and get entangled with three sexy, strapping fellows. Roberts has always been a winner at sexual tension and sexy dialogue, and so the reader gets to see not one but three couples get past the preliminaries and into the sack. The youngest sister, cowgirl Willa, manager of the Mercy ranch and daughter of an Ute mother, matches wits and strong wills with Ben McKinnon, lusty part owner of the Three Rocks spread. Lily, from Virginia, is a delicate, bird-boned creature who's been battered by her husband, but is now taken under the wing of Adam Wolfchild, Willa's Indian half-brother. And, finally, Tess, a sharp-dressing, wisecracking screenwriter from Hollywood who couldn't wait to get back to Rodeo Drive, stays to marry Nate, a frontier lawyer who raises horses, graduated from Yale, and loves Keats. Providing the usual Roberts suspense is a serial killer who guts and scalps his victims—not only humans but (in the newest romance-novel manifestation of evil) calves, cats, skunks and deer. (Why would anyone do that to Bambi's mom? wails Tess.) Roberts also includes a genuine, successful red herring, virgin territory for most romance writers, and incorporates all the important rituals of the genre with her customary skill and humor. A good read on a long winter's night.
Pub Date: March 12, 1996
ISBN: 0-399-14122-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1996
Brilliant.
Combining an unerring instinct for telling detail with the broader brushstrokes you need to tackle issues of culture and politics, Patchett (The Magician’s Assistant, 1997, etc.) creates a remarkably compelling chronicle of a multinational group of the rich and powerful held hostage for months.
An unnamed impoverished South American country hopes to woo business from a rich Japanese industrialist, Mr. Hosokawa, by hosting a birthday party at which his favorite opera singer, Roxane Coss, entertains. Because the president refuses to miss his soap opera, the vice-president hosts the party. An invading band of terrorists, who planned to kidnap the president, find themselves instead with dozens of hostages on their hands. They free the less important men and all the women except Roxane. As the remaining hostages and their captors settle in, Gen, Mr. Hosokawa’s multilingual translator, becomes the group’s communication link, Roxane and her music its unifying heart. Patchett weaves individual histories of the hostages and the not-so-terrifying terrorists within a tapestry of their present life together. The most minor character breathes with life. Each page is dense with incident, the smallest details magnified by the drama of the situation and by the intensity confinement always creates. The outside world recedes as time seems to stop; the boundaries between captive and captor blur. In pellucid prose, Patchett grapples with issues of complexity and moral ambiguity that arise as confinement becomes not only a way of life but also for some, both hostage and hostage-taker, a life preferable to their previous existence. Readers may intellectually reject the author’s willingness to embrace the terrorists’ humanity, but only the hardest heart will not succumb. Conventional romantic love also flowers, between Gen and Carmen, a beguilingly innocent terrorist, between Mr. Hosokawa and Roxane. Even more compelling are the protective, almost familial affections that arise, the small acts of kindness in what is, inevitably, a tragedy.
Brilliant.Pub Date: June 2, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-018873-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
SEEN & HEARD
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