A long-traveling stranger seeks the hand of a chief’s daughter in this debut novelization of an ancient legend from the Marshall Islands.
Ḷainjin—nicknamed Ḷōpako, or “Man Shark,” due to his constant movement—has long searched the scattered islands for his mother, the famous Tarmālu. She once led a large fleet from atoll to atoll, but since leaving her infant son long ago, no one has been certain of her whereabouts. While Ḷainjin and his bird companion, the Chief, are returning unsuccessful to Wōtto Atoll, where their hunt began, they meet a fishing party from nearby Lae Atoll. The group includes an alluring young woman: Liṃanṃan, the daughter of the chief of Lae, who quickly promises herself to Ḷainjin. The voyager manages to prove himself on Lae—saving the chief’s boat from destruction in a storm and dealing with the aggression of the local men—but there will still be challenges to face in order to be Liṃanṃan’s chosen one. “The most difficult will be resisting” Liṃanṃan’s cousin Likkōkālọk, his girlfriend’s grandmother informs Ḷainjin. “She will do everything in her power to get onto your sleeping mat. She is very cunning, and she will not respect Liṃanṃan’s choice or yours. If you’re not careful, she’ll pluck you out of the water like a fish and swallow you.” After all his searching, Ḷainjin may have finally found a home, but only if he can survive the dangers of the local politics. Knight’s steady prose succeeds not only in re-creating the details and customs of his prehistoric Micronesian setting, but its language and worldview as well: "In Rālik and Ratak culture both, you could sit yourself down by a man’s fire, enter his shelter, grab onto his fishing line or his kilt, or even throw pandanus fruit at his bird, but you could never touch his boat without permission." The pacing is slow and the plot meanders, but readers will be so thoroughly immersed in this remote world that they won’t mind. Fans of prehistoric fiction will enjoy this thoroughly researched and often charming tale.
An engrossing, realistic, and deeply detailed story set in Micronesia’s legendary past.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77180-228-4
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Iguana Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
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Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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