Although the insights are sometimes too explicit, Kaplan’s stories confidently, capably explore the switchbacks of human...
Relationships—flawed, ruptured, secret, evolving—are sifted and scrutinized in this latest collection from Kaplan (The Tell, 2013, etc.).
Several of the eight stories collected here are set in the author's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. The first story (and title tale) sets the tone with an economical portrait of the crises in Alice’s 10-year marriage to a man who is “proud, boastful, know-it-all, sometimes a bully” and who is enraging their community with plans to build a waterfront home that will destroy the classic vista from a revered artist’s historic homestead. Alice’s compromised response is echoed in “The School of Politics,” where museum director Francine reconnects with the “criminal, thug, intimidator” she once dated and who is now the mayor of her city and on trial for corruption. Kaplan’s insights into the waxing and waning of marital arrangements have their quirky side. Hollis, who breaks a tooth at the start of “The Aerialist,” returns to his old, none-too-gentle dentist, whose daughter, a trapeze artist, helps unlock the tension in Hollis' latest relationship. In “Companion Animal,” a husband whose single instance of infidelity has exposed his hollow marriage moves into shabby new digs and begins to understand some of the relationship deals we make. Children often play a role as game-changer, like the pregnant stepdaughter in “Lovesick” who reveals the truth behind an infertile marriage. The final, longest story is a departure, following two unattuned colleagues at a deserted private school who reluctantly link up in the face of the apocalypse. This narrative also hinges on a child and secrets declared, but its departure into horror and mortality sits oddly with the more familiar domestic upheavals that have gone before.
Although the insights are sometimes too explicit, Kaplan’s stories confidently, capably explore the switchbacks of human interaction.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-935439-90-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Ig Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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