Lester’s tendency toward preachy platitudes—“without loving myself, I cannot hope to love another”—undercuts the power of...
An issue-centered novel from former British journalist Lester showcases severe autism from the point of view of a devoted, deeply flawed father.
Ten-year-old Jonah cannot speak, is not toilet-trained, and has emotionally exhausted his parents: lawyer Emma, the primary breadwinner, and Ben, who supposedly manages his father’s Georg’s catering equipment business, although he spends much of his workday at the pub. In desperation, Emma and Ben apply to place Jonah in a residential school offering the care he needs. When the local school district, required to cover the extremely high tuition, cites Jonah’s “loving family” as a reason to reject his enrollment at the school (although American readers may be amazed at how much help the British government does offer), Emma suggests that she and Ben pretend to separate before appealing the ruling. Ben reluctantly agrees. He and Jonah move in with Georg, while Emma remains behind in their home. Though she has carefully organized a plan for Ben to follow in order to get Jonah transferred to the residential school, she becomes increasingly unavailable to talk to Ben or see Jonah and even advises Ben to borrow the money for legal costs from his father since she has tied up their funds in an investment. Ben and Georg, a gruff refugee from Hungary, have a difficult relationship. Ben’s mother left when he was 12, and Ben resents that his emotionally withholding father openly adores Jonah and tells him stories about his Jewish childhood in Hungary that he’s never shared with Ben himself. Then Georg is diagnosed with cancer. As Ben cares for both Jonah and Georg while carrying out Emma’s school-appeal blueprint, he must finally face the two long-avoided issues that have concerned his friends and Lester’s readers all along: Ben’s dependence on booze and his misreading of so much about his relationships with Emma and Georg.
Lester’s tendency toward preachy platitudes—“without loving myself, I cannot hope to love another”—undercuts the power of his heart-wrenching characters and plot.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4683-1472-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: He’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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