A novel in which relationships develop more from pragmatism than passion.
At the intersection of love, art, and politics, characters within a romantic triangle and a few just outside it discover that they're puppets whose strings have been pulled by a bureaucracy and whose fates are connected in ways beyond their control.
The latest from a novelist who's both been a Marine and worked in the White House opens with a reception for photographer Peter, an American expatriate in Istanbul, to celebrate his provocative series of shots from a recent protest in Istanbul. Among the attendees is Catherine, another expatriate American and the wife of a high-profile Turkish real estate magnate; she is having an affair with Peter, and much to his surprise, she's brought her young son, William, to the reception. Addressing the party is Kristin, an American diplomat in Cultural Affairs, who has apparently helped facilitate the photographs (and perhaps the protest that they document). The reception is being held at the apartment of Deniz, the director of the gallery presenting the exhibition. Catherine’s husband, Murat, waits at home for his wife and son, who return much later than he had anticipated. There is a blowout; Catherine and William flee to Peter, and she hopes they can return to America with him. The rest of the novel alternates the narrative tension of a woman caught between two men over the course of a single day, with flashbacks that provide context on the marriage, the affair, the protest, and the much larger web in which these characters are caught, mostly without their knowledge. The novel is deftly plotted, though the characters themselves seem more like pawns in the author’s narrative scheme, lacking much flesh-and-blood depth, though perhaps this is a reflection of the “moral hollowness” that Catherine suspects in herself, as she is suspended between a marriage of convenience and what might seem to be an affair of convenience. As Kristin says, “Each of us has to live....No matter how we do it.”
A novel in which relationships develop more from pragmatism than passion.Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-52181-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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