A thoughtful novel that shows war’s impact on people and communities.
In Ferns’ debut historical novel, two English sisters follow different paths before and after World War II.
In 1937, free-spirited Rachel discovers that she’s pregnant, and she turns to her down-to-earth sibling Veronica for support. Veronica marries airman Richard Mathews, and Rachel, after giving birth to daughter Susie, moves in with one of the men she’d been seeing, who soon brings drugs and abusive behavior into the house they share. Veronica attempts to help Rachel and protect Susie, but Rachel resents her interference, and the sisters drift apart. Veronica moves to the countryside as World War II intensifies. As London faces the threat of German bombings, Veronica persuades a reluctant Rachel to send Susie to her home as part of a general evacuation of children from the city. When it appears that Rachel has been killed in the Blitz, Veronica and Richard adopt Susie, who grows up with no memory of her birth mother. After the war, Richard returns home, scarred by his military experience, and turns to heavy drinking. In the 1950s, Rachel suddenly returns, forcing the family members to come to terms with secrets they’ve kept and with their responsibilities to one another. Ferns introduces a number of nuanced and engaging secondary characters, including Veronica’s theatrical best friend Heather, who brings a touch of lightness to a story laden with heavy themes. The war and its aftermath are thoughtfully handled, and the characters experience growth and newfound maturity over the course of the novel. The postwar scenes of Richard’s alcoholism and subsequent treatment are particularly well -done and reflect Ferns’ real-life background as a retired psychologist. The prose is generally strong, although the dialogue is often stilted, as when characters awkwardly avoid using contractions: “I am not sure this is the right place for me,” Richard says at one point. “I am uncomfortable.”
A thoughtful novel that shows war’s impact on people and communities.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5323-9826-1
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2019
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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