The seething mood and weather of India are captured memorably, but Hower never quite gives his main characters enough inner...
The ferment of ideas that was colonial India is richly suggested in the latest from Hower (Queen of the Silver Dollar, 1997; etc.), who retells the story of Theosophical Society founders Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott in their 19th-century quest for a legitimate home for spiritualist beliefs.
After the Civil War; journalist and ex-Captain Blackburn (Olcott), a skeptic seeking peace from the haunting memory of his legal work on behalf of a hanged conspirator to the Lincoln assassination, attends a gathering of spiritualists where he meets the medium Madame Milanova (Blavatsky). Within months, the two have established the Lamasery, a salon for spiritualist activity in New York City. Riding a wave of publicity, they next establish the Alexandrian Society—with members Thomas Edison and Abner Doubleday—but when the hoopla fades and the treasury dwindles, they think of relocating to India, a place that gives Milanova inspiration in the form of spirit “Masters” who guide her every pronouncement. When Alexandrianism arrives in Bombay, however, it meets with less than spectacular success—until Blackburn begins to make an impression as a white man espousing the virtues of native beliefs. Under surveillance by the British, Milanova and Blackburn tour northern India, gathering influence with every issuance of fiery rhetoric from the Captain. When the fervor surrounding them is squelched by colonial power, they move south to Ceylon, where Blackburn works a series of miracle cures and is hailed as a great holy man . . . until the cures prove to be fakes. The pair settle on a donated estate in Madras, keep their society going, and continue to attract followers. But the skeptics, backed by colonial and Christian interests, won’t leave them alone, and Milanova’s Masters come under a scrutiny that threatens to destroy all they have accomplished.
The seething mood and weather of India are captured memorably, but Hower never quite gives his main characters enough inner fire to account for their remarkable success.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-9679520-3-4
Page Count: 317
Publisher: Leapfrog
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2001
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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