A compelling story about life and art with vivid characters and an engaging setting.
Berman’s historical novel, on the triumphs and trials of a female artist, paints a picture of bohemian life while discussing deeper questions about the creative process.
In 1760s Venice, Angelica Kauffman struggles to make her mark as a painter while supporting herself and her father. Although she makes a living painting reproductions, she wishes to pursue artwork about historical subjects, which brings in less money. She catches a lucky break when a British noblewoman spots her talent and takes her to London to seek her fortune. Angelica becomes a great success, thanks to constant commissions for portraits and paintings of historical subjects. She eventually meets and befriends other artists, including the celebrated portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds. Despite Angelica’s determination to never marry, she becomes preoccupied with a mysterious Swedish count, and their relationship takes an expected turn. Later, Angelica and her family return to Italy, where she falls in with a community of artists and intellectuals in Rome. She’s intrigued by a man who turns out to be the celebrated author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; they feel an instant connection. Their friendship, intense but platonic, deepens quickly as they share similar philosophies on art, nature, and love. As she contemplates her future, Angelica must figure out what kind of love she wants, and how a woman in a sexist society can enjoy her freedom. Berman’s story of Angelica’s adventures among the nobility and other bohemian artists paints an illuminating yet subtly drawn picture of 18th-century society and the art world, in particular. Angelica’s commitment to independence is steely and determined, and in scenes where she’s at her easel, it’s easy to grasp how inspiration strikes and a painting comes together: “I paint the faint suggestion of an angelic face into the clouds. No one else will likely ever notice it, but my eye goes directly to the departed soul.” Those looking for steamy romance will be disappointed, but Angelica’s absolute commitment to living her own life is intense and refreshing.
A compelling story about life and art with vivid characters and an engaging setting.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781647427887
Page Count: 368
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Feb. 21, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.
Many years after her older brother, Bear, went missing, Barbara Van Laar vanishes from the same sleepaway camp he did, leading to dark, bitter truths about her wealthy family.
One morning in 1975 at Camp Emerson—an Adirondacks summer camp owned by her family—it's discovered that 13-year-old Barbara isn't in her bed. A problem case whose unhappily married parents disdain her goth appearance and "stormy" temperament, Barbara is secretly known by one bunkmate to have slipped out every night after bedtime. But no one has a clue where's she permanently disappeared to, firing speculation that she was taken by a local serial killer known as Slitter. As Jacob Sluiter, he was convicted of 11 murders in the 1960s and recently broke out of prison. He's the one, people say, who should have been prosecuted for Bear's abduction, not a gardener who was framed. Leave it to the young and unproven assistant investigator, Judy Luptack, to press forward in uncovering the truth, unswayed by her bullying father and male colleagues who question whether women are "cut out for this work." An unsavory group portrait of the Van Laars emerges in which the children's father cruelly abuses their submissive mother, who is so traumatized by the loss of Bear—and the possible role she played in it—that she has no love left for her daughter. Picking up on the themes of families in search of themselves she explored in Long Bright River (2020), Moore draws sympathy to characters who have been subjected to spousal, parental, psychological, and physical abuse. As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted. Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.
"Don't go into the woods" takes on unsettling new meaning in Moore's blend of domestic drama and crime novel.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593418918
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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