Inventive and engaging, full of drama, plus a few tears.
A debut novel that offers a charmingly imaginative, poignant prehistoric adventure in which one unique wolf and an intuitive tribal elder form a fateful bond.
When Oomha and his littermates were born, his mother knew they were different, which put them in danger of being mercilessly killed by the pack’s alpha male (an outmoded view of wolf behavior). As they grew, their “bodies stayed smaller and sleeker. Their eyes looked larger and closer together. Their behavior was more trusting and tamer, more curious and playful, more approachable and affectionate. And they were smarter by far than any of the other pups around them.” Hoping for the best, she leads them into the woods and abandons them to their own devices. Oomha becomes the litter-pack leader. One day, he picks up a new and unidentifiable smell. When he investigates, he discovers the strangest animals he has ever seen, ones that walk upright on their “back paws.” He moves in closer and settles down to study these creatures as they sit by their campsite fire. This is when he notices Ish, an old hunter with only one usable eye. Ish, once the tribal leader, can no longer run with the younger hunters, but he is wise and alert. He sees the red flash of Oomha’s eyes. Man and wolf make their first connection: “something [passed] between them.” Weinberg tells a tale not only of the intense human/dog relationship, but also of the progression of human skills. And he achieves this through the creation of three finely drawn characters—Oomha, Ish, and Lut, the beautiful, young, and mystical Medicine Woman who falls in love with Ish. Through the gifts he receives from Oomha, Ish leads the clan to unrivalled success. Centuries of human development are compressed into a few years through Weinberg’s vignettes depicting inspirational moments experienced by Ish or Lut that lead to such concepts as herding goats and planting crops. But Oomha is the star of the narrative. It is his kind, protective soul that readers will carry with them beyond the final page.
Inventive and engaging, full of drama, plus a few tears.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951317-19-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Weeva
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.
This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550369
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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