Zerndt (The Korean Word for Butterfly, 2013, etc.) explores themes of love and grief in this chronicle of a family tragedy in a small town.
It’s been almost a year since Mattias Long found his father Wile’s body hanging from a noose in his home office, but his family is still far from recovered. Mattias’ sister, Georgie, prefers a sleeping bag under her father’s desk to her own bed; his mother, Judith, is shattered by her recent discovery that her husband was having an affair. Mattias, meanwhile, exists in endless confusion that he can’t bring himself to voice. Unable to grieve together, the Long family scatters outward, seeking catharsis in different pockets of their community. Their ordeal forms the core of the novel and serves to illuminate the connections between a number of disparate characters, including Easy, a ski resort worker whom Georgie befriends; Helyana, Mattias’ religious best pal; and Sally White, the woman with whom Wile was having an affair. Every character has his or her own particular preoccupations and Zerndt handles them with aplomb, using his large cast to shine varied lights on the themes of family, grieving, and hope after loss. Indeed, the author’s skill with so many interwoven characters makes the few missteps stand out; Easy’s immediate infatuation with Georgie seems groundless, especially given their age difference, and although Helyana’s religious fervor makes sense, given her background, the frightening extent of her zealotry is out of place in the larger narrative. Still, the novel’s merits outweigh its flaws. Zerndt’s language is evocative: Mattias’ mother’s sour breath, for example, “makes him feel like he’s just stuck his tongue to an old 9-volt.” At another point, Georgie describes the ceiling as “a sky made of wood. A sky made of beautiful nothing.” Such moments exemplify what makes this novel successful, as the characters’ journeys, no matter how small, come together to form a treatise on the interconnectedness and everyday beauty of humanity.
A measured but ultimately uplifting meditation on family and hope in dark times.
Pub Date: April 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5115-2727-9
Page Count: 294
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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