An unusual story about the way a single event can change the course of someone’s life.
Two lives are forever changed after a sexual assault during World War II in this debut novel inspired by real-life events.
It’s 1943, and all over England people are doing what they can to support the war effort. In rural Yorkshire, 20-year-old Mary Louise manages the canteen at the local base; her parents take in a boarder, Jock McGregor, a married engineer overseeing the base’s expansion. One evening, Jock rapes Mary Louise. Soon, she discovers she’s pregnant. Jock refuses support—“I don’t want your child spoiling my future successes,” he tells her. Over the ensuing decades, Mary Louise’s and Jock’s paths diverge. She marries a widowed farmer, has more children, and gradually builds a comfortable life for herself. Jock returns home to his wife and children, but alcoholism and mental illness destroy his hopes for happiness. These two people, connected only by their brief encounter, lead totally separate lives until an old acquaintance arrives and encourages Mary Louise to come to terms with her past. Husband’s first novel is based on his own family’s remarkable history: his mother was the victim of a wartime rape, and he was born as a result. The author draws readers back through history with his detailed accounts of life in midcentury England and America. The book is well-researched and peppered with facts that help give the events context. Occasionally, however, these details intrude on the narrative—asides about the American Indian Movement’s occupation of Alcatraz Island or the effects of immigration in England’s West Midlands distract from the story’s larger drama. At times, these historical details seem to be a substitute for emotional depth. Some of the fictionalized elements, like Jock’s acid-tripping escapades in 1960s San Francisco, don’t ring true; it’s hard to imagine the uptight Jock suddenly discovering his inner love child. But the novel works as a study in the way war can drastically change people’s lives, even for those who never see action. It’s also a penetrating look at how different people respond to crisis.
An unusual story about the way a single event can change the course of someone’s life.Pub Date: March 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483408095
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
