McManus seems enamored of trapping his characters in hillbilly hell and stranding both them and readers there—for an...
Backcountry doom and gloom in tales that strive for authenticity and occasionally achieve it.
This second collection by the 24-year-old McManus (Stop Breakin’ Down, 2000) paints portraits of losers on their spirals into the depths—something that doesn’t always translate into must-read fiction. The opener, “Brood,” concerns a teenaged girl whose mother has just moved in with her new boyfriend met over the Internet. The new beau’s son, Eammon, has malformed teeth and an ugly disposition, so of course he’s been hitting on her nonstop. Everyone talks at everyone else in half-understood ciphers, coded text that takes more time to decipher than one really wants to spend. In “Aurora,” a young boy drives the freeways with his stickup-man father and pregnant, gloomy mother. They appear to be on a halfhearted sort of crime spree, the parents arguing and the father trying to keep his son’s spirits up. Meanwhile, this nuclear family thinks that the atmosphere outside is full of radiation, closing in on them like the law, who could be setting up roadblocks any minute: one of the better selections here, the story is a powerful portrait of the invisible forces waiting to engulf us all. One of the only pieces that breaks the mold is “Cowrie,” about two young friends in Australia, one an Iranian immigrant who says that, during the Iran-Iraq war, he shot an uncounted number of Iraqi soldiers his age or younger. The two hitch a ride from a couple of good ol’ boys, the Iranian dressed up as a woman to entice drivers. Along the way, he tells the men about his exploits during the war, convincing them he’s female, and they speed off down the freeway, swapping stories. Again, it doesn’t come to much—and doesn’t leave much of an impression.
McManus seems enamored of trapping his characters in hillbilly hell and stranding both them and readers there—for an inordinate amount of time.Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-30185-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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