In Clark’s debut romance novel, a young widow, bolstered by her religious faith, discovers new love and finds out what jealousy can drive people to do.
Annie MacKerricher, a 33-year-old scarf designer, is widowed when Jorge Reyes, a member of a local gang, robs and kills her husband, Sean, during his jog in Manhattan Beach, California. As Annie awaits Reyes’ trial to start, she begins coming to grips with how she felt invisible in her marriage—much like her grandmother’s teapot had been “out of sight” in her own home. On a trip to California’s North Coast with her sister and her family, she sees Trinidad Head, a massive outcropping off the coast, which leads her to the nearby town of Trinidad. There, she experiences a sense of déjà vu, and her eyes lock in mysterious recognition with a “thirtyish,” “handsome fisherman/artist” named Forrest Hammond. Trinidad makes her feel a “desire to rediscover herself.” After she obtains closure at Reyes’ sentencing, she moves to the new town, and just in time—because Reyes has marked her for revenge. However, even his threat pales next to the seething jealousy of Forrest’s former flame, the beautiful, red-haired Riatta Lutz. Meanwhile, Annie’s faith sustains her through these troubled waters. Throughout, Clark’s prose is as fluid as the setting: “Several sailboats were out with their colorful sails unfurled, gracefully gliding through the channel on their way out to sea.” Although the slow-building romance between Forrest and Annie is the story’s focus, the core theme of the work is “a woman’s courage to fail in life and begin anew.” The scenes of intimacy are chaste; Forrest feels “electricity surge between them” as he helps Annie undress after she’s injured, but for Annie, such passion can only exist in marriage. Some readers may find that Annie’s harsh judgment sounds a sour note: “I see a soul presently unredeemable,” she says to Reyes at his sentencing. She also aims her moral certitude at Forrest, just as they are beginning their relationship, which may cause some to lose sympathy for her.
A smoothly written tale about deep faith leading to love and self-understanding, hampered by sometimes-unsympathetic characterization.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5484-0470-3
Page Count: 330
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.
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Inseparable identical twin sisters ditch home together, and then one decides to vanish.
The talented Bennett fuels her fiction with secrets—first in her lauded debut, The Mothers (2016), and now in the assured and magnetic story of the Vignes sisters, light-skinned women parked on opposite sides of the color line. Desiree, the “fidgety twin,” and Stella, “a smart, careful girl,” make their break from stultifying rural Mallard, Louisiana, becoming 16-year-old runaways in 1954 New Orleans. The novel opens 14 years later as Desiree, fleeing a violent marriage in D.C., returns home with a different relative: her 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The gossips are agog: “In Mallard, nobody married dark....Marrying a dark man and dragging his blueblack child all over town was one step too far.” Desiree's decision seals Jude’s misery in this “colorstruck” place and propels a new generation of flight: Jude escapes on a track scholarship to UCLA. Tending bar as a side job in Beverly Hills, she catches a glimpse of her mother’s doppelgänger. Stella, ensconced in White society, is shedding her fur coat. Jude, so Black that strangers routinely stare, is unrecognizable to her aunt. All this is expertly paced, unfurling before the book is half finished; a reader can guess what is coming. Bennett is deeply engaged in the unknowability of other people and the scourge of colorism. The scene in which Stella adopts her White persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion. It calls up Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the book's 50-year-old antecedent. Bennett's novel plays with its characters' nagging feelings of being incomplete—for the twins without each other; for Jude’s boyfriend, Reese, who is trans and seeks surgery; for their friend Barry, who performs in drag as Bianca. Bennett keeps all these plot threads thrumming and her social commentary crisp. In the second half, Jude spars with her cousin Kennedy, Stella's daughter, a spoiled actress.
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53629-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
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Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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