An immersive novel of friendship and transcendent phenomena.
A woman attempts to cure her friend of frequent trips to the other side in Shearer’s debut novel.
Loretta Sparkman is going through a midlife crisis—or, as she prefers to describe it, turning into a zombie—due in part, perhaps, to her husband Matthias’ ongoing struggle with cancer. She’s also just reunited with her best friend, Jenny Black, who has come to stay with the Sparkmans after five years of absence from their lives. The first thing Jenny wants to talk about is near-death experiences. “Not having a bad scare or thinking you might die,” Jenny clarifies. “The other thing. When you go through a tunnel, float above your body, see dead relatives, your life flashes before you.” Loretta has never had one. Jenny has had 22. In the past year. They come to her out of the blue, whisking Jenny to a netherworld where she can communicate with the spirits of people who have already died. Why are they happening? What does it mean? Jenny wants Loretta, who works as a spokesperson for a university, to ask around the faculty and see if anyone might know something about NDEs. Loretta will do what she can, though a university scandal involving race and artificial insemination is taking up most of her time. Can the two old friends figure out just what these NDEs mean before Jenny gets trapped on the wrong side of death for good? Shearer’s prose has a lively precision, toggling between humor and urgency as needed. Here, one of Jenny’s episodes occurs in a lab: “Jenny nods, her body begins to go limp. Loretta rushes forward, grabs her beneath her arms and half-drags, half-pulls her to the machine. ‘It’s happening, now, it’s happening!’ she yells. The director is shouting, ‘Roll tape, run sound, places everyone, the event is coming, now! Go!’ ” The novel is as interested in the meaning of near-death experiences as the characters are, and the book as a whole serves as a rumination on the nature of life, birth, and death. While the plot sometimes dawdles, it’s an engaging, enjoyable story of attempting to find the right balance—at least while on this side of the grave.
An immersive novel of friendship and transcendent phenomena.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-73451-974-7
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Pumpjack Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.
A travel writer has one last shot at reconnecting with the best friend she just might be in love with.
Poppy and Alex couldn't be more different. She loves wearing bright colors while he prefers khakis and a T-shirt. She likes just about everything while he’s a bit more discerning. And yet, their opposites-attract friendship works because they love each other…in a totally platonic way. Probably. Even though they have their own separate lives (Poppy lives in New York City and is a travel writer with a popular Instagram account; Alex is a high school teacher in their tiny Ohio hometown), they still manage to get together each summer for one fabulous vacation. They grow closer every year, but Poppy doesn’t let herself linger on her feelings for Alex—she doesn’t want to ruin their friendship or the way she can be fully herself with him. They continue to date other people, even bringing their serious partners on their summer vacations…but then, after a falling-out, they stop speaking. When Poppy finds herself facing a serious bout of ennui, unhappy with her glamorous job and the life she’s been dreaming of forever, she thinks back to the last time she was truly happy: her last vacation with Alex. And so, though they haven’t spoken in two years, she asks him to take another vacation with her. She’s determined to bridge the gap that’s formed between them and become best friends again, but to do that, she’ll have to be honest with Alex—and herself—about her true feelings. In chapters that jump around in time, Henry shows readers the progression (and dissolution) of Poppy and Alex’s friendship. Their slow-burn love story hits on beloved romance tropes (such as there unexpectedly being only one bed on the reconciliation trip Poppy plans) while still feeling entirely fresh. Henry’s biggest strength is in the sparkling, often laugh-out-loud-funny dialogue, particularly the banter-filled conversations between Poppy and Alex. But there’s depth to the story, too—Poppy’s feeling of dissatisfaction with a life that should be making her happy as well as her unresolved feelings toward the difficult parts of her childhood make her a sympathetic and relatable character. The end result is a story that pays homage to classic romantic comedies while having a point of view all its own.
A warm and winning "When Harry Met Sally…" update that hits all the perfect notes.Pub Date: May 11, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0675-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
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