Intimate and touching, albeit not revelatory.
A woman faces the void in her life and home after the death of her longtime companion.
“He was a big man and he leaves a big space,” writes Christina about the recently deceased Rudy, a Vienna-born composer who shared her life for 28 years. At five o’clock, when Rudy would punctually begin grinding ice and slicing lime for her gin and soda, their farmhouse in upstate New York seems especially empty. Throughout, Frances Halsband’s line drawings of objects like Rudy’s chair, his metronome, and “Ralph the knife” (for the limes) underscore the text’s keening sense of absence as a palpable physical presence. Like Godwin (Evensong, 1990, etc.), Christina is a southern-born, divorced novelist, veteran of a teaching stint at Iowa; these similarities to her creator, along with the dedication to composer Robert Starer, Godwin’s own partner, who died in 2001, suggest that this is not so much fiction as an autobiographical meditation on love and loss cast in the form the author knows best. A few carefully selected memories reveal Rudy’s arrogance and frequently awful social behavior as well as his warmth and charm. Godwin’s experience and skill (this is her 11th novel) show in the absence of sentimentality, the seamless shiftings of time as Christina remembers incidents from her past, and the nicely calibrated mix of tragedy and comedy. The predominant tone is certainly sad, but there’s a surprising amount of humor, particularly in some very maladroit sympathy notes (“Beth is on her way to becoming an accomplished musician. Had it not been for Rudy’s prompting, I might not have acted so quickly”). The story does feel rather slight, but presumably it’s intended to be a personal statement, not the last word on death or loss. As Rudy once remarked about his work, “I used to try to be original. Now I try to be clear and essential.”
Intimate and touching, albeit not revelatory.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-46102-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
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
Sink into this book like a hot, scented bath...a delicious, relaxing pleasure. And a clever whodunit at the same time.
A wedding on Nantucket is canceled when the bride finds her maid of honor floating facedown in the Atlantic on the morning of the big day.
One of the supporting characters in Hilderbrand's (Winter Solstice, 2017, etc.) 21st Nantucket novel is Greer Garrison, the mother of the groom and a well-known novelist. Unfortunately, in addition to all the other hell about to break loose in Greer's life, she's gone off her game. Early in the book, a disappointed reader wonders if "the esteemed mystery writer, who is always named in the same breath as Sue Grafton and Louise Penny, is coasting now, in her middle age." In fact, Greer's latest manuscript is about to be rejected and sent back for a complete rewrite, with a deadline of two weeks. But wanna know who's most definitely not coasting? Elin Hilderbrand. Readers can open her latest with complete confidence that it will deliver everything we expect: terrific clothes and food, smart humor, fun plot, Nantucket atmosphere, connections to the characters of preceding novels, and warmth in relationships evoked so beautifully it gets you right there. Example: a tiny moment between the chief of police and his wife. It's very late in the book, and he still hasn't figured out what the hell happened to poor Merritt Monaco, the Instagram influencer and publicist for the Wildlife Conservation Society. Even though it's dinner time, he has to leave the "cold blue cans of Cisco beer in his fridge” and get back to work. " ‘I hate murder investigations,’ [his wife] says, lifting her face for a kiss. ‘But I love you.’ " You will feel that just as powerfully as you believe that Celeste Otis, the bride-to-be, would rather be anywhere on Earth than on the beautiful isle of Nantucket, marrying the handsome, kind, and utterly smitten Benji Winbury. In fact, she had a fully packed bag with her at the crack of dawn when she found her best friend's body.
Sink into this book like a hot, scented bath...a delicious, relaxing pleasure. And a clever whodunit at the same time.Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-37526-9
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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