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ZACK'S DAUGHTERS

Name: ZACK'S DAUGHTERS
Author: James Kreidler
ISBN: 978-1456849436

by James Kreidler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 10, 2011

An utterly disturbing, but often absorbing, family saga with lots of moving pieces.

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Kreidler’s novel charts the growth and decline of the tragic Neiway family across the first half of the 20th century.

When we meet Zack Neiway, he has already married two women, fathered eight children and died. The story then jumps back in time from small-town Wisconsin in the late 1950s to 1916, where two girls, Rachel and Martha, brush one another’s hair and dream about the future. This first of many leaps in time and perspective provides an early glimpse of Zack’s first and second wives. Rachel and Zack soon meet and marry, leaving Martha behind. Rachel gives birth to two daughters and two sons, but an increasingly dissatisfying home life is altogether shattered when she commits suicide. The act seems entirely out of character for a devoutly Catholic mother—faith, its powers and failures are major themes in the narrative—but flashbacks reveal that Rachel’s death is tied to her horrifying discovery about Zack and his daughters. Into this darkness walks Martha, Rachel’s oldest friend, who, if she doesn’t love Zack, at least feels duty-bound to care for the family Rachel left behind. Martha takes over Rachel’s role completely, becoming wife to her husband, mother to her children and, eventually, bearing Zack three daughters and a son. Martha is quick-witted and resourceful, but entirely oblivious to the misdeeds of her husband—which only continue, described in scenes that grow increasingly graphic. The book tells of one family’s twisted secret as it plays out over several decades; it’s an ambitious task, and one the author handles by constantly switching the focus from one character to the next. But there are so many Neiways, and so many strange and terrible things happening to them, that the reader becomes desensitized. Kreidler tackles an extreme taboo, and packs in too many tragic and exotic deaths on top of it. But in-between, he also crafts sentences that are delicate and moving. “The dress smelled somewhat of mothballs, which embarrassed Addie a bit in front of her classmates, but the odor faded, and she understood that life was limited”—writing like this is quietly sad, but gets lost amid so much overt tragedy.

An utterly disturbing, but often absorbing, family saga with lots of moving pieces.

Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2011

ISBN: 978-1456849436

Page Count: 207

Publisher: Xlibris

Review Posted Online: March 28, 2011

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE

by Gail Honeyman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 9, 2017

Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.

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A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.

At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.

Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.

Pub Date: May 9, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking

Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK TO SCREEN
‘Eleanor Oliphant’ Film Adaptation in the Works

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SUMMER SECRETS

by Jane Green ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 23, 2015

As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...

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Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.

By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.

As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.