An engrossing tale about the treacherous racial politics before the Civil War.
A historical novel set in the slavery era interweaves the stories of three men as they navigate the brutal social landscape of the time.
In 1832, Brady Scott is piloting a steamboat through dangerous Mississippi River shallows as an employment test when a miscalculation triggers tragedy. The engines are fired to power over a sandbar, which causes an explosion that kills multiple passengers, including Brady’s mother. The white pilot blames the black man in charge of the boiler team, Sandford Brown, for the disaster, making it his mission to track him down and obtain justice. Unemployable for his part in the catastrophe, Brady eventually becomes an apprentice at the St. Louis Observer under Elijah Lovejoy, whose paper lends a “new moral voice” to the area. The white abolitionist’s unpopular views make him a target and he moves the paper in 1834 to Alton, Illinois, believing a free state will prove more liberated. But three attempts to ship a new printing press result in the machine’s destruction, even when Brady accompanies it on the journey. The final assault on the press sees Lovejoy fatally shot. Witnessing Lovejoy’s unceasing moral convictions in the face of threats to his paper and life causes Brady to re-examine his own racist past and whether Sandford’s role in the steamboat blast deserved such intense blame. When Brady discovers Sandford is now working in Cleveland, the former pilot can finally take decisive revenge or offer total forgiveness. Cornelius (The Baker’s Daughter, 2018) describes his work as “historical character fiction” in the afterword, with the absorbing story heavily drawing on the published autobiographies of slave William Wells Brown (the basis for Sandford) and real-life abolitionist Lovejoy. Brady’s arc is a bit more contrived, with the character starting out as an outwardly racist teenager who unjustly blames Sandford for the steamboat accident, resulting in his irrational hatred of the man for most of the book. The author’s extensive research on the operation of steamboats is exemplary, but the action scenes involving steering the vessels will likely only excite nautical fans. Still, Cornelius skillfully highlights the complexities of America’s stratified society during the slavery era in this uneven but satisfying novel.
An engrossing tale about the treacherous racial politics before the Civil War.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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