This novel is depressing too; the reader is trapped within the consciousness of the narrator just as the narrator is trapped...
A grim parable of familial disconnect and purposeless existence set in a fog-bound German airport over one very long day.
After his critically acclaimed fiction debut (The Apartment, 2012), Baxter has raised the level of difficulty with his second novel—for himself and for the reader. There are no chapter breaks, and a paragraph can go on for pages. The entire novel takes place inside the head of an unnamed narrator who seems matter-of-fact at first but who descends through levels of emotional disturbance (recurring nightmares, panic attacks, self-laceration and other compulsions) as the tale progresses. And yet the tale never really progresses but keeps circling through memory and projection as the narrator spends a day’s eternity in the titular airport with his father, waiting to accompany his younger sister's corpse back to America. The sister, who had had little contact with either her brother or father since moving to Berlin, died of starvation. The narrator has also had little contact with his father since moving to London, where he had a brief, unhappy marriage with a woman he never names (other memories involve characters whose names he says he has forgotten) and left corporate employment for his own marketing consultancy business. Father and son have very little to say to each other, but a third character, Trish from the American Consulate, serves as a connection between the two and adds what little plot development there is. Mostly, the narrator suffers: “The light turns sickly. I start to shake. My mouth starts to water. A sickness that feels a little like nostalgia sets in. Then I begin to see the words I am thinking, individual words, and they become repulsive. A word like blue becomes repulsive. A word like airport. Their existence is depressing.”
This novel is depressing too; the reader is trapped within the consciousness of the narrator just as the narrator is trapped within his life.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-5795-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Twelve
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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