A tense, compelling peek behind the Berlin Wall.
Near the end of the Cold War, two students in the German Democratic Republic navigate love, deception, and freedom in Rintoul’s (translator: Outside Verdun, 2014) award-winning debut novel.
In the wake of her brother’s accident—the details of which, like many in Rintoul’s story, come to light only gradually—Magda Maria Reinsch lost faith in the communist cause. She once believed that communism would yield equality, but now the East German system strikes her as one “where favour counts for everything and merit for very little.” This change of heart inspires Magda to rebel against the party until her father, once a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, intervenes to give his daughter a second chance. Now, Magda studies to become an English-German translator at Karl Marx University Leipzig, all the while dreaming of an escape to the West alongside the charming Marek Dembowski, a friend who remained fiercely loyal to Magda after her brother’s injury. Together, Magda and Marek devise a way out of East Germany that revolves around Robert McPherson, a Scot finishing his advanced philosophy degree at Karl Marx. Though Magda casts a manipulative spell over Robert—at one point he chooses visiting Prague with her over seeing his sick father back home—she also finds herself falling for the Westerner, overcome with “an unexpected stab of desire.” Eventually, the Stasi catches Robert and Magda, a turning point that sends guilt-stricken Robert into a long stretch of depression and alcoholism, while Magda, after a brief imprisonment, must once again piece together her personal identity and public image. Beginning in 1985 and continuing after communism’s sharp decline, journalist and translator Rintoul’s engrossing tale alternates between Robert’s and Magda’s perspectives. Written in the second person, her sections are particularly strong, vividly anchoring the East German experience: “You know what the air is like in Berlin…a mix of brown coal dust and two-stroke fumes that leaves a bleak ferrous after-taste.” The novel’s weakness is Marek, who instigates much of the plot yet never appears long enough to elicit sympathy or disdain.
A tense, compelling peek behind the Berlin Wall.Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-906582-97-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Aurora Metro Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.
Things are about to get bloody for a group of Charleston housewives.
In 1988, the scariest thing in former nurse Patricia Campbell’s life is showing up to book club, since she hasn’t read the book. It’s hard to get any reading done between raising two kids, Blue and Korey, picking up after her husband, Carter, a psychiatrist, and taking care of her live-in mother-in-law, Miss Mary, who seems to have dementia. It doesn’t help that the books chosen by the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant are just plain boring. But when fellow book-club member Kitty gives Patricia a gloriously trashy true-crime novel, Patricia is instantly hooked, and soon she’s attending a very different kind of book club with Kitty and her friends Grace, Slick, and Maryellen. She has a full plate at home, but Patricia values her new friendships and still longs for a bit of excitement. When James Harris moves in down the street, the women are intrigued. Who is this handsome night owl, and why does Miss Mary insist that she knows him? A series of horrific events stretches Patricia’s nerves and her Southern civility to the breaking point. (A skin-crawling scene involving a horde of rats is a standout.) She just knows James is up to no good, but getting anyone to believe her is a Sisyphean feat. After all, she’s just a housewife. Hendrix juxtaposes the hypnotic mundanity of suburbia (which has a few dark underpinnings of its own) against an insidious evil that has taken root in Patricia’s insular neighborhood. It’s gratifying to see her grow from someone who apologizes for apologizing to a fiercely brave woman determined to do the right thing—hopefully with the help of her friends. Hendrix (We Sold Our Souls, 2018, etc.) cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he’s a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet.
Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68369-143-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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