The incomparable Hoagland's 25th book is not only one of the most rewarding novels of the year, it's also one of the sexiest.
Having lost his job, his wife, and nearly all of his eyesight, a former Merrill Lynch stockbroker braves a strange but compelling new existence in northern Vermont among hippies, drug dealers, evangelicals, and struggling farmers.
We are in the Vietnam era. Much of the time, the aged Press lives a life of "banal loneliness" in a small farm cabin, listening to Bach and Mozart on a Montreal radio station—sounds inseparable from "the creak of his swing on the porch, barn swallows harvesting bugs overhead, a teacher bird, and a wood thrush's liquid fluting." As much out of curiosity or boredom as compassion, the locals take an interest in him—especially Carol, an artist who lives on a nearby commune. She becomes his driver, social guide, caretaker, tease, and unexpected sex partner. In her company, he finds himself pushing past perceived limitations and brushing off his ex-wife's recommendation that he move into a nursing home. Never mind the dealers who are secretly storing marijuana in his shed. Long on surprises, his new life proves as richly revealing as it is unsettling. A treasure on multiple levels, the novel leads us into its protagonist's sensory world with such ease, intimacy, and humor the 83-year-old Hoagland—who is going blind himself—seems to be in our thoughts as much as we are in his. Taking leave of Press is no easy task.
The incomparable Hoagland's 25th book is not only one of the most rewarding novels of the year, it's also one of the sexiest.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62872-721-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing...
Here’s a real find: a striking debut from an Afghan now living in the US. His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistan’s tragic recent past.
Moving back and forth between Afghanistan and California, and spanning almost 40 years, the story begins in Afghanistan in the tranquil 1960s. Our protagonist Amir is a child in Kabul. The most important people in his life are Baba and Hassan. Father Baba is a wealthy Pashtun merchant, a larger-than-life figure, fretting over his bookish weakling of a son (the mother died giving birth); Hassan is his sweet-natured playmate, son of their servant Ali and a Hazara. Pashtuns have always dominated and ridiculed Hazaras, so Amir can’t help teasing Hassan, even though the Hazara staunchly defends him against neighborhood bullies like the “sociopath” Assef. The day, in 1975, when 12-year-old Amir wins the annual kite-fighting tournament is the best and worst of his young life. He bonds with Baba at last but deserts Hassan when the latter is raped by Assef. And it gets worse. With the still-loyal Hassan a constant reminder of his guilt, Amir makes life impossible for him and Ali, ultimately forcing them to leave town. Fast forward to the Russian occupation, flight to America, life in the Afghan exile community in the Bay Area. Amir becomes a writer and marries a beautiful Afghan; Baba dies of cancer. Then, in 2001, the past comes roaring back. Rahim, Baba’s old business partner who knows all about Amir’s transgressions, calls from Pakistan. Hassan has been executed by the Taliban; his son, Sohrab, must be rescued. Will Amir wipe the slate clean? So he returns to the hell of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and reclaims Sohrab from a Taliban leader (none other than Assef) after a terrifying showdown. Amir brings the traumatized child back to California and a bittersweet ending.
Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible.Pub Date: June 2, 2003
ISBN: 1-57322-245-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
"This soil," concludes the young narrator of this quiet chronicle of garrotted innocence, "is bad for all kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear." And among the exclusions of white rural Ohio, echoed by black respectability, is ugly, black, loveless, twelve-year-old Pecola. But in a world where blue-eyed gifts are clucked over and admired, and the Pecolas are simply not seen, there is always the possibility of the dream and wish—for blue eyes. Born of a mother who adjusted her life to the clarity and serenity of white households and "acquired virtues that were easy to maintain" and a father, Cholly, stunted by early rejections and humiliations, Pecola just might have been loved—for in raping his daughter Cholly did at least touch her. But "Love is never better than the lover," and with the death of her baby, the child herself, accepting absolutely the gift of blue eyes from a faith healer (whose perverse interest in little girls does not preclude understanding), inches over into madness. A skillful understated tribute to the fall of a sparrow for whose small tragedy there was no watching eye.
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1970
ISBN: 0375411550
Page Count: -
Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970
BOOK REVIEW
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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