A thrilling drama, philosophically thoughtful and emotionally gripping.
A farmer tries to protect his family from the apocalyptic teachings of a charismatic preacher in this novel set in the 19th century.
After a 20-year absence, the Rev. William Miller returns to Calvary, New York, in 1844 to claim his birthright as the minister of the local Baptist church, a position his father, Samuel, held for a half-century. William shocks the town’s denizens by delivering a chillingly apocalyptic message: They are living at the end of time, and God’s judgment will soon be decisively delivered. He argues that his interpretations are scientifically exact, based on a mathematical decoding of the mysteries of Scripture. He even presents a date for the end of the world: Oct. 22, leaving the residents of Calvary about six months to prepare their souls. While some in the town are mesmerized by his powerful sermons and visions (“I see souls perishing by the thousands”), others are duly skeptical, like Henry Smith. The farmer is suspicious of William’s intentions, especially since he once tried to court Henry’s wife, Mary. But Henry finds himself in a delicate predicament, one masterfully depicted by Harper—he’s anxious that William’s rhapsodic teachings will entice his two youngest children, Benjamin and Rosemary, the latter of whom proves particularly susceptible to the minister’s bewitching rhetoric. The author limns a remarkably astute account of the psychology of belief, which often only turns to evidence that will legitimize a prior conviction, one deeply emotional in nature. In addition, he raises provocative questions about William’s own beliefs—it is fascinatingly unclear whether he is a madman, grifter, or some complex but difficult to define third option that includes elements of both. Henry’s challenge is beautifully daunting—he wants to save his family from William’s gloomy prognostications but also stay true to his own faith in God.
A thrilling drama, philosophically thoughtful and emotionally gripping.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-28206-0
Page Count: 388
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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BOOK REVIEW
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