A flavorful mix of genres and influences, especially captivating for fans of Indian storytelling.
A magical-realist narrative follows a large, eccentric family in India—from dealing with the impoverished years after 1947 to finally solving the supernatural mystery plaguing the clan.
Thekkumthala (Amballore House, 2016) returns to the offbeat universe of his preceding novel with this linked family dynasty saga. A central figure in the ensemble cast is Thoma, a big, blaspheming, and blustery family man in the Indian state of Kerala. Hotheaded and irresponsible, Thoma creates a lot of his own problems. He is a victim at the outset, robbed of his share of his clan’s estate and ejected into the streets just as India wins independence. The new nation’s poverty- and corruption-wracked growing pains mirror the family’s chronic dysfunction, as Thoma repeatedly abuses and impregnates his angular, long-suffering Christian wife, Anna, while failing to pay rent to their slum landlord, Chettiar. It just so happens that Chettiar is a werewolf (talking animals and visiting gods and demons are just a matter of course in this story), and his vengeful rape of Anna introduces a strain of lycanthropy into Thoma’s bloodline. Some of the family’s kids turn out great (the eldest son, Josh), while others have varying shades of villainy and menace—and a few daughters disappear or are murdered. Joining many fellow Indians in a diaspora in Canada pursuing their educations, Josh helps his aging parents get a home of their own, and he even solves the generations-old curse of Chettiar. Like its predecessor, this seriocomic epic blends the myths and religions of several cultures. Hinduism predominates, but one can expect doses of Roman Catholicism, flights of movie fantasy, Gypsy superstitions, and a loving ode to the author’s home, Canada. Thekkumthala’s tone can go from childish to fairy-tale and dime-novel pulp to iridescent to Shakespearean without skipping a beat or violating the reality of the world of marvels and miseries he invokes. Prior acquaintance with(the even less straightforward) Amballore House is unnecessary, although the two certainly bookend each other quite well.
A flavorful mix of genres and influences, especially captivating for fans of Indian storytelling.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5353-1581-4
Page Count: 488
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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