This sensitive debut novel puts theme before function in portraying the post-Boomer generation's nostalgia for the '60s they just missed out on. In 1978, 18-year-old Phoebe O'Connor is still haunted by the mysterious death, termed a suicide in 1970, of her hippie teenage sister Faith in Italy. Newly graduated Phoebe is feeling restless at home in San Francisco after discovering that her widowed mother is romantically involved with her boss. Phoebe's further horrified when her mother insists that her father, a would-be painter whose day job was being an IBM executive, had no talent. She spontaneously takes off for Europe to retrace Faith's steps in the days leading up to her death. Egan (whose stories have appeared in major magazines) takes a long time setting all this up, and in order to get the background in place, she often makes matters too convenient. It seems unlikely that an old friend of Faith's would run into Phoebe, recognize her (because of her resemblance to her sister), invite her to his apartment, talk about her sister, and then hand her a joint to deliver to his cousin in Munich. Later, when Phoebe arrives in Munich, there is a coincidence so huge and unbelievable that it almost destroys the earnest heart of this book. On the other hand, Egan does some fine writing. Descriptions of Amsterdam and London are so accurate they are almost tactile, and Phoebe's disappointment in finding that things are no longer quite so groovy as they used to be anywhere in the world is convincing. Eventually, she gets to the locus of Faith's despair and learns how the ideals of the '60s disintegrated. All of this is logical, but Egan has clearly set out to depict an entire generation rather than to tell a story. For example, Phoebe's brother is a 23-year-old millionaire with his own software company who exists only to show the alternative to the counterculture. Covers a lot of ground but sometimes stumbles. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 9, 1995
ISBN: 0-385-47379-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably displayed in this vignette — a simple, tragic tale of Mexican little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by the dealers- he determines to go to the capital for a better market; the doctor, hearing of the pearl, plants the seed of doubt and superstition, endangering the child's life, so that he may get his rake-off; the neighbors and the strangers turn against Kino, burn his hut, ransack his premises, attack him in the dark — and when he kills, in defense, trail him to the mountain hiding place- and kill the child. Then- and then only- does he concede defeat. In sorrow and humility, he returns with his Juana to the ways of his people; the pearl is thrown into the sea.... A parable, this, with no attempt to add to its simple pattern.
Pub Date: Nov. 24, 1947
ISBN: 0140187383
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1947
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