A blue-blood American family endures trials and tribulations from the 1950s through the present day.
The WASPy Chadwicks are “like American royalty,” a vast extended clan with money and roots dating back to before the Revolution. When Allen’s (The Hanging Man, 2018, etc.) ambitious and expansive novel opens, it’s 1954, and the family has gathered for its annual Thanksgiving celebration at the Old Home. Aging patriarch Pop suddenly dies, which sets the stage for a new generation of Chadwicks to come to the fore, including stockbroker Ted; his loving wife, Jane; and a confusing passel of kids, grandchildren, cousins, and in-laws. This multigenerational family saga offers a snapshot of American life through the decades as the Chadwicks deal with unplanned pregnancies, an interracial romance, economic crises, and more. Mores may shift and political winds change, but the Chadwicks prove resilient, as their strong commitment to family keeps them together. Unfortunately, that might not be enough to hold readers’ interest. There’s the germ of a compelling story here, but the book lacks tension and is overstuffed with characters and competing plot points. Potentially dramatic twists—a suspected suicide, the specter of AIDS—are swiftly introduced and even more quickly resolved. Several chapters open with a rote recitation of significant world events at the time. While this device attempts to situate the story in a larger historical context, these incidents are largely divorced from the everyday lives of the various Chadwicks. Intriguing characters abound, like a sexually repressed Army colonel and an ambitious young woman who marries the son of a Mexican cabinet secretary, although they beg to be explored in more depth. But Allen has wisely chosen his setting, with most scenes occurring at the quaint family compound near Plattsburgh, New York, to which the family returns again and again over the years. Without this home base, “a huge weathered clapboard house” on the shore of Lake Champlain, the Chadwicks would likely have splintered long ago. But by maintaining a physical link to a shared past, they are also able to stay connected to one another, “happy to be who they were, and where they were.”
A sprawling and somewhat unfocused tale of life, love, and family.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 271
Publisher: Rogue Phoenix Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
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Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
Categories: GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
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A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
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Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
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