An exceptional story of the future that quietly sounds an alarm about extremities of human behavior.
As climate change turns the United States into a storm-ravaged swamp in the late 21st century, three sets of refugees attempt an unauthorized border crossing into Canada in Willis’ (Deadly Highway, 2018, etc.) post-apocalyptic tale.
In 2086, most of Florida and New Orleans no longer exist thanks to rising sea levels. Georgia swells with homeless people, and waves of migrants struggle north to Canada, where right-wingers in the Ottawa government have tried locking down the border. Texas, a fetid bayou, is where the Wilkins family dwells, safe but discontented in domed, bleak corporate oil-company housing. They’re surprised when beer-drinking, abusive patriarch Frank Wilkins agrees to leave for Canada for a fresh start; in truth, he just wants to rejoin his younger mistress, who moved there. Divorced Savannah accountant Harry Sykes, his house ruined in a hurricane, embezzles from a disaster relief fund so that he and his college-age son can flee north. In corrupt Chicago, Cynthia “Cyndie” Sherwood is the pampered but fed-up trophy wife of a successful but philandering lawyer. Using his ties to the migrant-smuggling underworld, she joins a transport with her disgruntled, adolescent daughter in tow. The narrative brings the entire ensemble together for a harrowing exploit. In plainspoken and quietly unnerving language, Willis effectively gives weight even to minor characters and sometimes manages to jolt readers with unexpected revelations. Readers who are looking for future-tech thrills or creatively envisioned ruins in an apocalyptic-dystopic milieu may be disappointed, though; aside from subcutaneous identification chips, self-driving autos, drones, and roll-up pocket computers, the sci-fi gimmickry quickly falls away. Instead, this is an elemental drama of fairly ordinary, often uncouth people on an arduous, quavering journey, pushed to their limits and crossing boundaries—of nations, of laws, of morality—for the sake of survival or just plain selfishness.
An exceptional story of the future that quietly sounds an alarm about extremities of human behavior.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-68433-361-5
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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