A family saga that effectively explores the irrevocable legacy of the past and the enduring hope of redemption.
When a western Pennsylvania family reunites for a funeral, old hurts and angers rise to the surface in Roberts’ (Seven Thin Dimes, 2016, etc.) novel.
It has been more than a decade since Elise Delcroix visited her hometown of McDonald, deep in Pennsylvania coal country. She’s built a successful life of her own in New York City, resolutely leaving behind her old identity as the child of Emil Delcroix, a second-generation Belgian immigrant who’d been forced to marry Elise’s mother, Noelle. Although Elise’s paternal grandfather, Jules, adores her, she’s always been her own father’s least favorite, behind Emil’s other daughter, Nova, the product of a teenage romance with an African-American woman named Rose; and Andre, his son with his Vietnamese wife, Leanne. Now, as the family comes together to mourn Emil’s death, Elise must come to terms with her troubled relationship with him as well as her own long-buried secrets. In a compact, absorbing narrative that flows seamlessly between past and present, Roberts manages to convey the epic scope of a multigenerational family that’s torn by old resentments and conflicting loyalties. Roberts tells the story from the points of view of three memorable and very different women: Elise, successful and assured but always an outsider; Nova, generous and loyal in spite of Jules’ bigoted rejection of her; and Eugenie, Emil’s mother, who met Jules when they were both refugees from Nazi aggression. As the novel unfolds, the author skillfully weaves French Belgian and western Pennsylvanian cultures into her examination of intricate, intergenerational family dynamics. Although Nova seems too good to be true at times and the important character of Andre is vastly underdeveloped, Elise’s complex psychology is completely believable and ably carries the book to its realistic, ambiguous ending.
A family saga that effectively explores the irrevocable legacy of the past and the enduring hope of redemption.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-68222-143-3
Page Count: 194
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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