Like most family road trips, the novel is sometimes rollicking fun, sometimes unbearably annoying; but the trip goes on too...
Kokoris (The Pursuit of Other Interests, 2009) aims to balance issue-oriented domestic drama with levity in this story about a middle-aged man who sets off in the family van for a life-changing road trip with his autistic son.
John Nichols, a 57-year-old divorced high school teacher, former college basketball player, and one-book novelist, sets off from Wilton, Illinois, in his Honda Odyssey with his 19-year-old son, Ethan. They’re heading to Charleston, South Carolina, where John’s oldest child, conservative Republican bond trader Karen, is getting married. John still pines for his ex-wife, Mary, a lawyer who kicked him out after his one foolish fall into adultery two years earlier. She shares custody of Ethan and is waiting impatiently in Charleston, annoyed that John risks missing the wedding. But given John’s heavy-duty packing and the effort he puts into Ethan’s goodbyes to his favorite places in Wilton, it's obvious that the trip is bigger than John has let on. Traveling with Ethan, who has the emotional and mental capacity of a 3-year-old, is difficult. Managing the boy's mood swings and short attention span requires lots of pit stops, lots of Cracker Barrel meals, and three talking teddy bears. Shortly after John’s middle daughter, Mindy, a successful actress, joins John and Ethan in Tennessee, she tells him that Karen’s called off her wedding. They continue on to Charleston anyway, and there, John’s secret comes out: without telling Mary, he's signed Ethan up for an unexpectedly available spot at a residential treatment center in Maine that he and Mary both liked when they visited the year before. The Nichols women are furious, but they decide to accompany John to Maine to decide what they think of the place themselves. While the miles pile up, John, Mary, and their daughters sort out what's best for Ethan and their own futures.
Like most family road trips, the novel is sometimes rollicking fun, sometimes unbearably annoying; but the trip goes on too long, and the clashes, jokes, and revelations become as repetitious and tedious as the endless pit stops and chain-restaurant meals.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-03605-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
Twisty and propulsive.
A first date takes a sinister turn for a troubled young woman in Walker’s third psychological thriller.
It’s the day after Laura Lochner’s date with a man she met online, and she hasn’t returned to the Connecticut home of her sister, Rosie, her brother-in-law, Joe, and their little boy, Mason, where she’s been staying after a bad breakup. Rosie fears the worst, but Joe advises caution. After all, Laura is an adult and can have some fun, right? But Rosie has a bad feeling. Laura won’t answer her phone, and Rosie only has more questions after poking around online for info on Laura’s date, Jonathan Fields. Rosie eventually calls the police, and events begin to cascade like dominoes. Interspersed with Rosie’s attempt to trace Laura’s movements and get a handle on the guy she went out with is Laura’s first-person account of the actual date as well as enlightening snippets of sessions between Laura and her therapist. Laura’s is the most compelling part—a tormented, often prickly piece of storytelling by a woman carrying the pain of a horrible event that happened in high school and feelings of abandonment by a father who always seemed to love Rosie more. Laura’s desire to be loved is all-consuming, but her conviction that she is not worthy of love is heartbreaking. She sees subterfuge in nearly everything Jonathan says and does. Meanwhile, Rosie must come to terms with some ugly surprises of her own as she digs into their past. As the timelines inevitably converge, Walker’s clever misdirection paves the way to a truly chilling finale, and she has plenty of insightful things to say about the blame placed on women by society and themselves for the idiotic, careless, and sometimes downright evil things men do.
Twisty and propulsive.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-19867-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Feb. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Though it doesn't feel much like an adult novel, this book will be welcomed by any Blume fan who can handle three real...
A beloved author returns with a novel built around a series of real-life plane crashes in her youth.
Within 58 days in the winter of 1951-'52, three aircraft heading into or outbound from Newark Airport crashed in the neighboring town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, taking 116 lives. Blume (Summer Sisters, 1998, etc.), who was a teenager there at the time, has woven a story that mingles facts about the incidents and the victims—among them, Robert Patterson, secretary of war under Truman—with the imagined lives of several families of fictional characters. Though it's not always clear where truth ends and imagination begins, the 15-year-old protagonist, Miri Ammerman, is a classic Blume invention. Miri lives with her single mother, Rusty, her grandmother Irene, and her uncle Henry, a young journalist who makes his reputation reporting on the tragedies for the Elizabeth Daily Post. In addition to the crashes, one of which she witnesses firsthand, Miri faces drama with her mom, her best friend, the adviser of her school newspaper, and her first real boyfriend, an Irish kid who lives in an orphanage. Nostalgic details of life in the early '50s abound: from 17-inch Zeniths ("the biggest television Miri had ever seen") to movie-star haircuts ("She looked older, but nothing like Elizabeth Taylor") to popular literature—"Steve was reading that new book The Catcher in the Rye. Christina had no idea what the title meant. Some of the girls went on dates to Staten Island, where you could be legally served at 18....The Catcher in the Rye and Ginger Ale." The book begins and ends with a commemorative gathering in 1987, giving us a peek at the characters' lives 35 year later, complete with shoulder pads and The Prince of Tides.
Though it doesn't feel much like an adult novel, this book will be welcomed by any Blume fan who can handle three real tragedies and a few four-letter words.Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-87504-9
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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