by Jeff Wallace ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 10, 2017
A novel of war and recovery from a consummate storyteller at the height of his powers.
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A thriller follows a family living near Richmond during the Civil War.
It’s September 1862 in this historical novel, and the Confederate and Union armies have all of Richmond on edge. Following Gen. Robert E. Lee’s advance north, a father and daughter of the Richmond gentry open their doors to care for a Southern officer badly wounded by Union foragers near Mechanicsville. Capt. John S. Holland, scion of a wealthy family allied with Jefferson Davis, took a ball in the leg that shattered his femur in two places. He convalesces in a newfangled contraption designed to spare him amputation while Anna Van Meer reads aloud to keep his spirits up. In Anna’s opinion, “Those who want the war should have it in abundance and leave the rest of us alone.” Her father hates slavery, and before the conflict broke out she assisted him in the operation of a station on the Underground Railroad. She suspects he has kept that station going all this while. After he accepts the captain, Anna wonders why her father is striving “to create the illusion they were supporters of the Southern cause,” recalling that “they’d never gone to such lengths before.” But the war closes in, and before long Anna finds herself in flight, away from the comfort she’s known and with the principal folks in her heart put to a test. Holland, for whom she’s fallen, works valiantly to protect her, though he knows himself to be “a diminished man.” Wallace (The Man Who Walked out of the Jungle, 2017, etc.) is a serious artist who never fails to attend to his audience’s needs, providing fast-moving action and characters of real depth. Though they might have come across as implausible clichés, both Anna and Holland strike the reader as complex and credible, and their early courtship (during which “his presence was like a noxious smell that rendered her life wretched”) convinces in an accomplished, fresh, and indirect style. The author understands the period well. The intricacy with which he layers his characters’ historical imaginations can only enrich any reader’s understanding of the tensions of the 1860s and the tangled hearts of men and women.
A novel of war and recovery from a consummate storyteller at the height of his powers.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2017
ISBN: 970-0-9983291-5-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by Jeff Wallace
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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