Strikingly imagistic and contemplative poetry that will live on in memory.
This volume of poetry explores themes of parenthood, the natural world, and the pleasures and pains of existence.
Wendell’s spellbinding collection opens with a poem entitled “Portrait Chinois,” in which the author observes a picture of the artist Frida Kahlo: “I study the woman staring back, / wondering why she kept / dark caterpillars inching / over darker eyes.” The piece ponders representations of the female body—with the poet revealing that she cut her hair after injuring herself falling from a horse—and proceeds to celebrate survival. Horse riding is a common theme in this book. The following poem, “Ride,” considers the freedom and naïveté of riding in childhood, with “no inkling of danger.” Similarly, the title poem is about the necessity to relax when falling off a horse and how this applies to life’s other distressing events. Poems such as “Blizzard of Nothing” and “Storm Chaser” bear witness to the awesome power of nature, whereas “Southpaw” and “Kites” are tender examinations of parenthood. The thoughtful collection ends with “Viva la Vida,” a tribute to endurance and a further nod to Kahlo’s art. Readers new to Wendell’s poetry will be struck by her use of distinctive imagery. In “Blizzard of Nothing,” settling snow is “a crazed Einstein, / erasing what came before / to start the lesson over— / a blizzard of wisdoms / traveling at the speed of relative / incomprehensibility.” The author has a refreshingly imaginative gaze. Simple acts, such as kite flying, become effortlessly analogous to the art of parenting: “My daughter, for instance. / The closer, / the easier to manipulate. / The farther out, / more risk and thrill.” Wendell’s poetry resonates with mature, often tough wisdom: “Come off a horse enough times, / and you learn how to fall.” But among life’s agonizing lessons her pieces also locate simple ecstasies, such as stargazing: “I want to sleep to drink / from that dark rift / between stars, / I want to empty / the ladle of light.” Wendell is a dazzlingly inventive and perceptive poet, and it proves a joy to see the world through her eyes.
Strikingly imagistic and contemplative poetry that will live on in memory.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-952593-23-9
Page Count: 86
Publisher: FutureCycle Press
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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