An ambitious interpretation of an intriguing figure that should appeal to historical-fiction enthusiasts.
A novel that details the life of American revolutionary Robert Morris, from his humble beginnings to his triumphant rise and eventual ruin.
As the story opens, Morris, a wealthy merchant and a recently elected member of the Continental Congress, spends a cold winter’s night at the City Tavern in 1776 Philadelphia, discussing politics with the barmaid, Betsey. The tavern is a gathering place for the “prominent” and the “ordinary” alike to share opinions, emotions, and ideas. Morris is no stranger to so-called ordinary life, growing up uneducated in Liverpool, England, without a mother. He shares his revolutionary ideologies with Betsey just as passionately as he does with Maj. Wilhelm von Lowenstein, a doctor in the Hessian Mercenary Army, sent to the Colonies to study the “unseen battle scars” inflicted on the minds of soldiers. As the narrative progresses, Foyt (Time to Retire, 2013, etc.) explores and develops Morris’ character through these conversations, embellishing on his grand economic plans to expand his sea-merchant trading business and his hopes of freedom from the English crown. Unfortunately, as Morris’ arrogance and hunger for wealth and power grow, his impending demise becomes apparent. Foyt has written this thoroughly researched novel with great attention to detail, bringing dusty history to life with down-to-earth tales of the everyday experiences of the American Revolution, and he offers plenty of settings that will be familiar to aficionados of the era. Rather than telling a war story with tired tropes of battlefield heroism and gore, the author instead examines the inner workings of Morris’ psyche through imagined but historically rich dialogue, and he effectively shows how passion, power, and an obsession with the idea of revolution drive the Founding Father to a point of irreversible greed. As a result, watching his downfall becomes just as engrossing as his impressive rise to success—if not more so.
An ambitious interpretation of an intriguing figure that should appeal to historical-fiction enthusiasts.Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-941713-23-5
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Andrew Benzie Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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