Relentlessly depressing but superbly composed story of a tragically lost soul.
A homeless man wanders the streets and beaches of Los Angeles in search of purpose in Seaward’s literary debut.
Eyan has no sense of time and can’t remember how long he’s been on the streets or even his age. He guesses 20, but he looks considerably older, primarily because he had his rotten teeth removed. Though initially alone, he eventually reunites with Marc, a friend from school who lives on Skid Row with “the professor,” a man who once taught at the University of Chicago. This leads Eyan to connect with Paul, another, more dangerous former schoolmate. Paul’s a criminal, often surrounded by his minions, who enlists Eyan as his drug mule since Eyan walks everywhere and, like other homeless in LA, is effectively “invisible.” Paul’s gang is likely responsible for the dead bodies that are periodically turning up, a string of homicides that local detectives don’t seem capable of stopping. Meanwhile, Eyan struggles with thoughts of death and family, and he always carries a notebook that he fills with words he wants to remember. He has sporadic, “shifting” memories, from his mother and his sister’s disappearance during his first and only year of high school to a girl he once knew who committed suicide. It certainly doesn’t help his erratic memories when detectives question Eyan regarding some of the murder victims and ask about the contents of his notebook. Ultimately, Eyan makes a decision that will forever change his life as well as others’.
With few moments or recollections of happiness, Eyan is the quintessential tortured soul. He’s entirely sympathetic and endearing and only grows more so as readers get to know him. Though the story plants itself in dark territory, it’s not devoid of hope; Eyan’s notebook is an especially potent indicator that he continually strives to understand those around him. Seaward’s narrative is smoothly nonlinear, lucidly depicting flashbacks and memories. And while Eyan’s perspective isn’t strictly reliable (he’s completely unaware of how much time passes), supporting characters are distinctive. Marc in particular shows a kindness toward the protagonist that speaks volumes; he’s one of the few people who doesn’t mock Eyan. The author writes in a plain prose steeped in metaphor. For example, Paul’s minions are “eyeless” because they perpetually don mirrored sunglasses that not only quash their identities, but constantly remind Eyan of his own identity when seeing his reflection. Despite parallels between the City of Angels and passages of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which the professor reads to Eyan, Seaward’s tale is sublimely understated. He, for one, often portrays LA as a realistically grim rather than overtly hellish landscape: “Eyan wanders up and down the boardless boardwalk until the crowds thin to the point of disappearing. It is late at night. He finds his special place. The tiny spot he can crawl into, pull his knees to his chin and place a thumb in a toothless mouth.”
Relentlessly depressing but superbly composed story of a tragically lost soul. (about the illustrations; acknowledgements; about the author)Pub Date: June 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-88984-431-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Porcupine's Quill
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.
This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550369
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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