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BARLEY PATCH

A peculiar kind of reluctant self-revelation that is both intriguing and frustrating.

One of Australia’s leading writers looks at the unusual building blocks of his work.

This is a reissue of a book first released in 2009, and noteworthy, among other reasons, because it ended a hiatus of more than a decade in which Murnane “gave up writing fiction.” As the narrator of this “fiction”—he avoids the terms “novel” and “story”—explains, instead of writing, he would concern himself with pondering images, characters, landscapes, and feelings from his previous reading and writing that made a lasting impression. He might also “write intricate sentences made up of items other than words.” Fortunately, only words are used in this book, a strange kind of writer’s manifesto that tries to convey how the mind of this Australian fictionist works, or at least the mind of the narrator—a distinction Murnane struggles to maintain given the narrative’s many autobiographical details. The early pages deal at length with the lasting impressions he absorbed from reading Brat Farrar, one of the better works by an exceptional mystery writer named Josephine Tey. A similar discussion concerns impressive images from the comic strip Mandrake the Magician. Eventually, certain themes or motifs emerge that appear frequently in other Murnane works, such as colored glass in doors or windows, jockeys’ racing colors, horse racing in general, and the monthly illustrations of a wall calendar. Some images almost become mantras with their frequent repetition, such as a house with two storeys and a “grassy countryside” (each appears more than 40 times). There are compelling ideas here about the creative process, but the average reader may find it difficult to appreciate them amid the repetition, the painstaking diction, and the bemusing eccentricities of Murnane’s prose.

A peculiar kind of reluctant self-revelation that is both intriguing and frustrating.

Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2025

ISBN: 9781916751149

Page Count: 272

Publisher: And Other Stories

Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

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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