A shrewdly observant, emotionally astute postmodern version of a family saga. Here, Freud (Peerless Flats, 1993, etc.) focuses more on individual episodes than on continuity. Her parallel narratives trace, on the one hand, the collapse of the privileged lives of the wealthy Belgards in WWI-era Germany, and, on the other, the efforts of a descendant of the family to unravel its mysteries. The three Belgard sisters are, at first, more concerned with their long-simmering conflict with a distant mother than with the onset of war. Even the departure of their beloved brother Emmanuel to the army doesn’t much affect the tenor of their comfortable existence at Gaglow, the family’s vast country home. But little by little the war intrudes: The girls— father, an affluent grain merchant, watches his fortune dwindle; their brother disappears on the Eastern Front; and the once-sumptuous estate shows signs of disrepair and decay. Along the way, the author, great-granddaughter of Sigmund, shows an uncanny ability to get inside the turbulent minds of adolescent girls: Her depiction of Bina, Martha, and Eva’s dreams, fears, and fascinations is lively and detailed.. In a subplot set in modern London, Sarah, a sometime actress in her 20s, pregnant with her first child, gradually becomes consumed by the need to make sense of her ÇmigrÇ family’s obscure past. Her search is spurred by the news that Gaglow, having been held by the now-collapsed East German regime, will likely return to the family. Sarah and Eva’s parallel struggles as young women (Eva must face the collapse of her comfortable life, and the loss of family members; Sarah must deal with a baby, a stalled career, and a feckless boyfriend) are rendered with feeling, but the two stories never converge convincingly. And Freud, while she renders emotions with accuracy, never seems much interested in motivations. Still, the portrait of a vanished way of life is forceful and moving. And Freud’s elegantly uncluttered prose is a pleasure. A skilled, if somewhat uneven, performance.
Pub Date: April 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-88001-585-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998
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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