A candid, charismatic glimpse into the ups and downs of a blossoming adoptive father–son duo.
Dekker’s heartwarming memoir chronicles the bumpy ride of a modern family coming together amid complicated circumstances.
Dekker expected the adoption process to be long and grueling. He knew he would endure months of paperwork, expense and agonizing waiting, but he also knew that eventually he could fulfill his dream of becoming a parent. He also imagined his and his partner’s worlds being turned upside down by baby diapers and sleep deprivation—not by becoming the single parent of a nonstop, troubled 10-year-old boy. Dekker’s journey into parenthood was unique and serendipitous. Though not previously disinterested in adopting an older child, he found himself taken in by Danny, a plucky little boy who, after being abandoned by his mother and abused by his grandmother, had nowhere to go except into the foster care system. Dekker, having wrestled with his own demons as a young adult, was immediately charmed by Danny; Dekker knows he can build a stable family life for the child. As the two get to know each other, their relationship slowly grows into that of a father and son. The only snag they face in becoming a true, legal family is navigating the bureaucratic child welfare system. From overmedicating doctors to bungling social workers, Dekker dispassionately describes the incompetence and obstructiveness he endured as he tried to adopt Danny. Dekker’s ability to relay his frustration with authorities and the emotional roller coaster of adoption is striking. It would be easy for a memoir dealing with this subject to veer into an angry, ranting outburst, but Dekker’s restrained writing conveys the chaos with refined dignity. While the dialogue can often seem a little too polished, Dekker is refreshingly honest about his emotions and fears. He comes across as reasonable and in control, even in his darkest moments of doubt, which makes the story all the more poignant and inspiring.
A candid, charismatic glimpse into the ups and downs of a blossoming adoptive father–son duo.Pub Date: April 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1937777012
Page Count: 276
Publisher: NiceTiger
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A cool diagnostic tone helps capture the teenage experience but occasionally obstructs the emotional trip.
Dickerson’s debut tells a sympathetic coming-of-age story deeply embedded in ’90s music.
When a book about musically inclined teens begins with a five-page meditation on suicide, readers may assume not all will end well. That introduction sets the tone for the novel: reflective, unafraid of big-picture pronouncements—“Absolutely nothing is more do-it-yourself than suicide”—but also digressive. The main characters, Thomas, 17, and Bridget, 15, exemplify teenagers of the ’90s: Thomas dreams of grunge superstardom with his band of misfits, while Bridget barely survives her regimen of mood-stabilizers and antidepressants, her feelings of alienation erupting in a gangsta rapper alter ego. Yet the omniscient narrator freely swoops into the minds, memories and POVs of minor characters, giving sympathetic but brief glimpses into other lives. Mom and dad, for instance, may simply be parental obstacles to the kids, but we know them better as we glimpse into dad’s tour in Vietnam and his work as a judge, and mom’s free-love past. Other digressions add to our understanding (or memory) of the ’90s, placing in context, for example, the first Starbucks in the neighborhood or the church’s acoustic music night. These digressions turn out to be narratively motivated: The omniscient narrator turns out to be someone reflecting on the past. And yet some of the asides are less momentous or simply too long: At two pages, a digression on black-and-white motifs in pop culture and race relations begins to feel essayistic and detached from the novel. The digressions and broad declarations sometimes mute the main characters’ emotional journeys, while treating the teens more like specimens. Still, the cool, casual tone results in some knockout diagnoses of the ’90s teenage condition: “[Y]ou feel older as a teenager than you will ever feel in your entire life.”
A cool diagnostic tone helps capture the teenage experience but occasionally obstructs the emotional trip.Pub Date: April 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0985188610
Page Count: 329
Publisher: Kettle of Letters Press
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Not quite Ripley, but an enjoyable tour of a deranged mind nonetheless.
In Hunt’s debut thriller, what begins as a humdrum play-by-play of a community’s recovery from a disastrous hurricane blooms into a twisted tale involving two murders—both by the same hand.
On a whirlwind trip to Machu Picchu, 40-year-old Judy meets dashing and single Sam Haite on a train. They flirt; they fall in love; they marry and languish in pursuit of connubial bliss. Sam makes millions selling miniscule pets to wealthy yuppies and Judy dabbles in doling out physical therapy to patients at the local hospital. But following a party at the Haites’, an elderly couple from down the street is injured by a fallen tree. Eileen—the wife—survives, but her husband, Joe, is left brain-dead in critical condition. When a hurricane hits, so does the ensuing drama. After weeks of housing Eileen and Joe’s meddling relatives (who are waiting for Joe to die), Judy takes matters into her own hands by secretly suffocating Joe in a brutal act she calls a mercy killing. At this point, the tone and pacing of Hunt’s novel shifts and picks up speed. In quick succession—and in stark contrast to the languid tempo of the book’s first half—Judy is fired from her job, walks in on Sam having sex with an old college friend and leaves Florida for her parents’ cabin in Maine. When Sam visits Judy unannounced and fatally chokes on a fish bone during a heated conversation about their crumbling marriage, Judy does nothing to save him. In a Tom Ripley–esque manner, Judy chucks all vestiges of her old life into the sea—along with Sam’s ashes—and begins anew, with nary a backward glance of regret. While she doesn’t succeed in matching the psychological complexity of Highsmith’s writing, Hunt’s portrayal of Judy bares merit, even though Sam’s death feels sudden and Judy’s reaction seems too blasé to be fully believable. Perhaps if more red flags were raised and more clever hints about Judy’s warped mental state were artfully interspersed in the text, then readers wouldn’t feel so jilted at the book’s conclusion. Still, Hunt’s Judy is a deliciously intriguing portrait of what a trapped mind is capable of—and how far it will go to break free.
Not quite Ripley, but an enjoyable tour of a deranged mind nonetheless.Pub Date: April 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-1466360044
Page Count: 306
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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