An intimate, engrossing, rough-and-tumble look at what can be gleaned from life.
A semiautobiographical novel covers one man’s long path to maturity.
Frank presents the story of Jeff Williams. At the outset of the book, the year is 1992, and Jeff, 45, is in the ICU. More about why Jeff is in the hospital is revealed later in the tale. The important thing at this point is that Jeff’s dire circumstances allow him to develop a personal relationship with Death. “Big D,” as Jeff casually refers to him, has much to share. As Jeff tells his story, beginning with his fraught childhood in Utah, Big D chimes in at the end of every chapter with advice to impart. This is usually geared toward taking responsibility for one’s life. Concepts include “You are the creator of your life,” and “There is nothing in your life that didn’t consciously, or unconsciously, require YOU for it to be there.” Whether it is the uncaring atmosphere Jeff experiences in an orphanage or his tumultuous time in the Army, there is extensive material for the protagonist and Big D to examine. Jeff’s tale is a distinct one. He recounts that he was adopted, lived in a number of rugged places (like Fry Canyon, Utah, and New South Wales, Australia), and although drafted into the military during the Vietnam War, he spent a great deal of his service time in South Korea. It is in these unexpected, highly personal details that the book is most engaging. Readers are given an account of issues such as why American soldiers are advised not to marry local South Korean women while serving abroad (though many, including Jeff, do anyway). Later portions are not always as memorable. For instance, Jeff explains complications at different jobs (a bad manager here, pay schedule changes there) that, while relatable, do not as fully capture the imagination the way something like being on red alert near the DMZ does. Yet the conversations with a personification of death lend an intriguing element to the narrative. The author is not simply recollecting through Jeff, he is also analyzing and learning. The opinions expressed ultimately come with a lifetime of experiences to back them up.
An intimate, engrossing, rough-and-tumble look at what can be gleaned from life.Pub Date: May 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73-483670-7
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.
A time-toying spy romance that’s truly a thriller.
In the author’s note following the moving conclusion of her gripping, gleefully delicious debut novel, Bradley explains how she gathered historical facts about Lt. Graham Gore, a real-life Victorian naval officer and polar explorer, then “extrapolated a great deal” about him to come up with one of her main characters, a curly-haired, chain-smoking, devastatingly charming dreamboat who has been transported through time. Having also found inspiration in the sole extant daguerreotype of Gore, showing him to have been “a very attractive man,” Bradley wrote the earliest draft of the book for a cluster of friends who were similarly passionate about polar explorers. Her finished novel—taut, artfully unspooled, and vividly written—retains the kind of insouciant joy and intimacy you might expect from a book with those origins. It’s also breathtakingly sexy. The time-toggling plot focuses on the plight of a British civil servant who takes a high-paying job on a secret mission, working as a “bridge” to help time-traveling “expats” resettle in 21st-century London—and who falls hard for her charge, the aforementioned Commander Gore. Drama, intrigue, and romance ensue. And while this quasi-futuristic tale of time and tenderness never seems to take itself too seriously, it also offers a meaningful, nuanced perspective on the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today.
This rip-roaring romp pivots between past and present and posits the future-altering power of love, hope, and forgiveness.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781668045145
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
A stunning feat of storytelling and moral clarity.
An Irishman uncovers abuse at a Magdalen laundry in this compact and gripping novel.
As Christmas approaches in the winter of 1985, Bill Furlong finds himself increasingly troubled by a sense of dissatisfaction. A coal and timber merchant living in New Ross, Ireland, he should be happy with his life: He is happily married and the father of five bright daughters, and he runs a successful business. But the scars of his childhood linger: His mother gave birth to him while still a teenager, and he never knew his father. Now, as he approaches middle age, Furlong wonders, “What was it all for?…Might things never change or develop into something else, or new?” But a series of troubling encounters at the local convent, which also functions as a “training school for girls” and laundry business, disrupts Furlong’s sedate life. Readers familiar with the history of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries, institutions in which women were incarcerated and often died, will immediately recognize the circumstances of the desperate women trapped in New Ross’ convent, but Furlong does not immediately understand what he has witnessed. Keegan, a prizewinning Irish short story writer, says a great deal in very few words to extraordinary effect in this short novel. Despite the brevity of the text, Furlong’s emotional state is fully rendered and deeply affecting. Keegan also carefully crafts a web of complicity around the convent’s activities that is believably mundane and all the more chilling for it. The Magdalen laundries, this novel implicitly argues, survived not only due to the cruelty of the people who ran them, but also because of the fear and selfishness of those who were willing to look aside because complicity was easier than resistance.
A stunning feat of storytelling and moral clarity.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5874-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
