A tediously proselytizing novel, more a political editorial than a dramatic work of literature.
A group of cranky retirees rallies against political correctness in Zerr’s novel.
Gregory George “Notso” Normal, an 80-year-old man, meets his aging confreres every week at the American Legion to drink beer and exchange cantankerous complaints. Gregory’s friends are no longer keeping their critical views to themselves—Hiram, Norb, Del, Oscar, and Ollie propose the establishment of a fraternal group designed to proclaim their judgments to the world, specifically taking aim at what they see as the ubiquitous regimen of political correctness that renders common sense an “absent virtue.” They call themselves the Curmudgeonly Old Poops and appoint Gregory the historian and “Dispatch drafter,” the one to pen their weekly grievances and post them online. Their creed is simple: The “world is going to hell in a handbasket and is hell-bent-for-election to get there,” and “There IS something we can do about it.” COP rustles some feathers—Gregory and his wife, Jolene, receive threats—but the membership expands, as does a mandatory group reading list. The narrative angles for a somewhat banal lesson in civic moderation, as concisely if unspectacularly summarized by Gregory: “We need to remember what we’re trying to do with our Dispatches, which is to bridge the chasm dividing Americans into hard-over, uncompromising camps. We are trying to change people’s behavior, and we will have to deal with tough subjects to have a chance to accomplish our goal.” The novel has a lightly humorous tone—there is something irrepressibly endearing about the combination of splenetic grumpiness and old-fashioned prudence that characterizes the protagonists. However, the entire work has a gratingly didactic quality—this is less a dramatic novel than a platform for cultural commentary. The author’s condescension is only exacerbated by the banality of the novel’s insights (“Before you tell others how to act, examine your own behavior”). Zerr’s work is cute and tender, but that does not compensate for the book’s hectoring tone.
A tediously proselytizing novel, more a political editorial than a dramatic work of literature.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781957676418
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Primix Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
A moving portrait of rueful middle age and the failure to connect.
An acclaimed novelist revisits the central characters of his best-known work.
At the end of Brooklyn (2009), Eilis Lacey departed Ireland for the second and final time—headed back to New York and the Italian American husband she had secretly married after first traveling there for work. In her hometown of Enniscorthy, she left behind Jim Farrell, a young man she’d fallen in love with during her visit, and the inevitable gossip about her conduct. Tóibín’s 11th novel introduces readers to Eilis 20 years later, in 1976, still married to Tony Fiorello and living in the titular suburbia with their two teenage children. But Eilis’ seemingly placid existence is disturbed when a stranger confronts her, accusing Tony of having an affair with his wife—now pregnant—and threatening to leave the baby on their doorstep. “She’d known men like this in Ireland,” Tóibín writes. “Should one of them discover that their wife had been unfaithful and was pregnant as a result, they would not have the baby in the house.” This shock sends Eilis back to Enniscorthy for a visit—or perhaps a longer stay. (Eilis’ motives are as inscrutable as ever, even to herself.) She finds the never-married Jim managing his late father’s pub; unbeknownst to Eilis (and the town), he’s become involved with her widowed friend Nancy, who struggles to maintain the family chip shop. Eilis herself appears different to her old friends: “Something had happened to her in America,” Nancy concludes. Although the novel begins with a soap-operatic confrontation—and ends with a dramatic denouement, as Eilis’ fate is determined in a plot twist worthy of Edith Wharton—the author is a master of quiet, restrained prose, calmly observing the mores and mindsets of provincial Ireland, not much changed from the 1950s.
A moving portrait of rueful middle age and the failure to connect.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781476785110
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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