A meandering story, though not without its charms.
A man grappling with an early midlife crisis finds belonging in an unexpected place in Allan’s novel.
In 1995, 34-year-old Phil Gower is out of work, his bank account is shrinking, and he’s crashing with distant relatives in Vancouver, where he’s overstayed his welcome. When Gower answers an ad seeking a principal for the Cothbert House School—formerly a private institution north of Squamish that closed in the ’80s and is in serious disrepair—he doesn’t have high hopes. He meets with gruff Harriet T. Hunter, also known as “the Major,” who served in the Canadian military and intends to open an ESL school for international students. Though the gig feels like a “last resort,” Gower accepts the job, only to encounter a mountain of setbacks. The Major constantly barks orders and she’s very tight-fisted (“When it comes to her money, she’s as tight as a drum and she doesn’t trust anyone”), squawking over having to pay for renovations and supplies, while the incessant griping of colleague Harrison Tweedsmuir is an energy drain. Much of the story centers around preparations, hiring staff, and attracting students from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Among them is Thomas “Kanga” Kang, an autistic child with a kangaroo obsession, and the gifted but temperamental Byung-ju Lim. Financial hurdles threaten the school; the Major accidentally shoots herself in the foot while attempting to scare off pesky raccoons; and two students report seeing a ghost wearing a pink robe. Allan’s writing is crisp, and his descriptive passages about the area’s natural surroundings are particularly vivid: “A soft mist hovered above the ground, punctuated by enormous red cedar trees,” he writes. “Flashes of forest green peaked through, revealing moss and lacy ferns growing over a rocky terrain.” Unfortunately, the narrative’s central concerns—the school’s viability and Gower’s growing connection to it—never heat up past a lukewarm state, and while Gower proves to be a solid leader, readers don’t really learn what makes him tick.
A meandering story, though not without its charms.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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