A gentle page-turner, as they say.
The sixtysomething ladies of Covington (From the Heart of Covington, 2002, etc.) are a tad older in this fourth in the series, but still good friends as new challenges threaten to undermine their spirit.
When a summer fire destroys the farmhouse that the three ladies—Grace, Amelia, and Hannah—renovated as a home for themselves after leaving the dreary boardinghouse in Pennsylvania, they learn that rebuilding will be only one of many decisions facing them. All three lost treasured possessions in the fire and must also find temporary housing while they decide what to do. Amelia and Grace move into Bob’s condominium, and Hannah, with daughter Laura, who has been living with the ladies, moves to another family-owned one. Amelia is the most affected, as the fire reminds her of her painful past: the death of her young daughter and the accident that killed her husband and badly scarred her. But the ladies, especially Hannah and Grace, are (no surprise) indomitable, and they begin right away to plan a new house that will incorporate some old features (porches to sit on) and some new (more bathrooms). They find the money, and the building starts, but as the house nears completion their friendship is tested by challenging new developments. Laura plans to marry co-worker Hank but may abort the baby she’s carrying, an idea that distresses Hannah, though she’s delighted about Hank; Amelia, though affected by an encounter with a terminally ill-child, begins to take photographs again; and Grace, whose companion Bob wants her to marry him, is under pressure not to move back once the house is complete. When Bob suffers a heart attack, Grace decides, though she misses her independence, that she can’t leave him. Amelia, feeling better since she saw a psychiatrist, and Hannah, who’s received an unexpected marriage proposal, move into the new home, but it’s not the same without Grace. Will life ever be as good again on Cove Road?
A gentle page-turner, as they say.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7434-7036-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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