An engaging reflection on friendship during turbulent times.
Stone’s debut historical novel tells a story of the tumultuous Vietnam War years—from the battlefield and from the Australian homefront.
In 1956, just a few months shy of his daughter’s sixth birthday, Catherine Mary Moreton’s father deserted his wife and young daughter. Her mom packed up their clothes and, with Catherine in tow, left Melbourne, Australia, to live with her parents in Sydney. Now it’s November 1967, and Catherine is waiting to hear if she has been accepted to a university. Her mother declares that Catherine must get a job for the intervening months—and she’s found her a position in a Kings Cross record shop. The sheltered teenager, who was raised in Catholic schools and under the constant supervision of her mother and grandmother, finds herself spending her days in Sydney’s raunchy nightclub district, where she forms an assortment of diverse friendships. Stone, through Catherine’s narration, gives readers an intriguing inside view of her character’s journey from teenager to adult over the next three years. Working at the record shop and as a waitress at La Tête-à-Tête café, she meets many young American GIs who cycle in and out of the city during short leaves from the war: “We had no history, not even that of growing up in the same country,” Catherine notes, “but more often than not, a feeling of familiarity and comfort swaddled our conversations and spilled over into letters once they got back to Vietnam.” Those letters, interspersed throughout the narrative, are an integral part of the story; inspired by correspondence that the author herself received, they effectively reveal the hopes, fears, loneliness, and philosophical musings of young men fighting a war far away from home, unsure of their futures. These are deftly juxtaposed against Catherine’s own search for direction and purpose as she takes her first tentative steps toward independence. Stone only minimally develops her secondary characters, but she still manages to present readers with a poignant, vivid microcosm of a society in the throes of change. A useful glossary defines Australia-specific terminology, such as “Brollie: umbrella” and “Prang: a crash involving a motor vehicle.”
An engaging reflection on friendship during turbulent times.Pub Date: March 20, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-578-47524-0
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Bowker identfier
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
