All the bucolic pacifism of an episode of Prairie Home Companion without the seething undercurrents.
The denizens of Mason, Missouri, are at it again, dispensing just deserts with unearned optimism on the side.
The premise for this book, a sequel to two other novels set in Mason (Night of Miracles, 2018; The Story of Arthur Truluv, 2017), is the Confession Club, a group of mostly middle-aged women who meet regularly at each other’s homes to exchange secrets over wine and treats. For the most part, though, the Confession Club operates independently and irrelevantly of the novel’s main concern—the ongoing sagas of the late Arthur Truluv’s surviving friends. Iris, baking teacher extraordinaire, is about to turn 50, and 20-something Maddy has just returned from New York City with her 7-year-old daughter, Nola, leaving her new husband behind. A major character is introduced: John, a 66-year-old, handsome, homeless Vietnam vet, has made his way from Chicago to Mason, taking up residence in an abandoned farmhouse. Berg does not delve deeply into either the details of John’s homeless existence or his Vietnam combat experience. However, the competence and resourcefulness John displays as a homeless person are strangely at odds with his PTSD. This contradiction might give readers pause, since PTSD (for which he refused counseling) led to John's wife’s departure, which resulted in his homelessness. Iris is immediately attracted to John, albeit leery of him—and it’s unclear how leery she should be. The Confession Club seems to exist mostly to explore themes like infidelity, loneliness, independence, and longing, which are too generic to relate to the principal players’ predicaments. As usual, Mason is a refuge unruffled by the country’s political turmoil, and conflict, if any, is mostly avoided before it can generate any excitement. Some readers may wish to return to Mason again and again, to relax with the literary equivalent of well-worn slippers, a glass of wine, and no wellness diets in sight. But readers seeking insight into modern American life, leavened with humor, might be better challenged by Richard Russo or Anne Tyler.
All the bucolic pacifism of an episode of Prairie Home Companion without the seething undercurrents.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-984855-17-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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
© Copyright 2024 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.
