A rigorous, if bloated, tale about race and honor in World War II.
A journalist doggedly attempts to unravel a mystery about his father’s wartime service in this novel.
John Patrick “J.P.” Kilroy Jr. is a political columnist for the Washington Times who is estranged from his father, Johnny. When he’s called on to receive the Medal of Honor on Johnny’s behalf, Kilroy didn’t even know that he was dead. Reluctant to collect the award, Kilroy eventually relents. At the White House ceremony, he meets four men who served with his father in World War II: Schuyler Johnson, Harley Tidrick, Frank West, and Lincoln Abraham. Abraham is also getting a medal, one of seven African-Americans who served in World War II to be so decorated and the only living recipient. Kilroy is regaled by all four of his father’s old friends about Johnny’s service as an elite Army paratrooper. The columnist learns about Johnny’s best friend of the same name, called Jake to distinguish between the two. Kilroy soon becomes suspicious the crew is harboring a secret regarding his father, an impression all of the men eventually confirm. Nevertheless, they made a pact to never disclose the truth, compelling Kilroy to pursue the matter. Meanwhile, he begins a torrid romance with Cynthia Powers, a representative from the Army’s Public Affairs Office. Nevola (Revenge of the Pearl Harbor Survivors, 2011) spent four years researching this novel, and his scrupulously punctilious efforts show—his mastery of the historical material is astounding. The author is particularly adept at explaining the complex race relations that characterized the military at the time, wrought with prejudice and segregation. In a memorable exchange with Kilroy, Abraham complains bitterly that some German prisoners of war were treated with more respect than African-American soldiers. But Nevola buries readers under a mountain of minutiae and overdeveloped subplots, which is why the book needlessly registers at more than 500 pages. In addition, its tone can be cantankerously didactic: Schuyler grouses too hyperbolically about the decline of America. Still, the story’s denouement is spectacularly creative, justifying the author’s dawdle getting there.
A rigorous, if bloated, tale about race and honor in World War II.Pub Date: July 29, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4327-5665-9
Page Count: 530
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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