A brief, powerful historical novel that reflects on the beauty and brutality of life in wartime.
In this gripping novel, Paul (Nothing is Strange with You, 2008) chronicles bloody Civil War battles fought by the 95th Pennsylvania regiment.
As the novel opens in May 1864, the 95th Pennsylvania Volunteers have dwindled from the infamous “Original Twenty-Five” to just 12. These young men, encamped in Virginia, introduce themselves in an opening sequence that relies on formulaic descriptions (“a twenty-two-year-old typesetter and aspiring journalist from Philadelphia”) but benefits from rollicking dialogue (“Oh, I’ll tell you about it soon.” “When? When we’re all dead and buried?”). Although Paul includes real-life historical figures in the story, such as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, he invented these dozen major characters. As the soldiers each discuss heroism and self-abnegation, they develop distinctive personalities. Their tone is often one of philosophical resignation—when “[g]ood men get killed every day,” “it ain’t always important whether you live or die,” one insists—but some soldiers are also devout religious believers, praying for God’s mercy for themselves and the Confederates. Paul effectively recreates the atmosphere of wearisome marches and gory warfare, and his combat scenes are matter-of-fact and graphic: There are gunshot and bayonet wounds but also crushed testicles and teeth-torn throats—as well as an unexpected erection in a scene of uncomfortably sexualized violence. The narrative often shifts to a single character’s perspective, only to have him suddenly shot to death. Such unsentimental bluntness, however, contrasts with Paul’s overall concern for his characters’ psychological back stories; Abbot, for instance, longs to join an English theater troupe, while Greisler is terrified of fire. The novel’s finest chapter details a wounded soldier’s struggle to escape an eerie forest and rejoin the company, and it balances irony and tragedy perfectly, juxtaposing tender flashbacks of the soldier’s prewar life against the blood-soaked present. As the novel concludes, with just a “quartet of survivors” remaining to parade through Philadelphia, the sadness is tempered by the prospect of new life ahead: “[Babcock] resumed walking forward—or backward—or sideways, or up and down—into what looked like the future.” Paul’s canvas may be limited in this novel, but his talent could easily sustain future works of epic historical fiction.
A brief, powerful historical novel that reflects on the beauty and brutality of life in wartime.Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4936-9582-9
Page Count: 164
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
