A brave and bold novel about radical self-acceptance and living in the face of trauma.
Chronic pain takes center stage in this funny, moving meditation on coming to terms with your body's limitations.
Norwegian transplant Laura must find her way in New York City as a newly single mother with an unpredictable and vulnerable body. "For years, I've considered it an established fact that the female body is a pain in the ass," she deadpans in the novel's opening line. "The male body seems like a sunny campsite in comparison." In her mid-20s, Laura was diagnosed with endometriosis, a painful condition that left many of her internal organs scarred and fused together despite numerous treatments and corrective surgeries. Now, at 36, she must also navigate a recent divorce, single parenthood, and dating women and men in a body that won't always cooperate. When Kjetil, the loving Norwegian ex Laura abandoned to move to the U.S. and pursue a writing degree, suddenly immigrates to the city, Laura is yet again confronted with the particular pains of her past. Havelin's debut moves backward in time, from the chaos of contemporary New York to the thrill of coming-of-age in a body that still feels full of promise. As a young girl in Norway, Laura struggled with chronic stomach pain and severe allergies that derailed her interest in figure skating, alienated her from her parents and friends, and eventually disrupted her ability to work, love, and feel productive. "It's crystal clear to me that no one wants to hear about it," thinks Laura, "but I will never finish needing to tell how much it hurt, how much it hurts, how bad it is." It's unusual to encounter such open and bold writing about pain as well as the attendant fear, resentment, and stress that burden someone who needs care and treatment. Havelin's novel is unsparing in this regard, showing how deeply Laura struggles with the psychological burdens of having a body with a mind of its own and how hard she works to get free. She's a caustic, wry, and tender heroine who will make you root for her even in her darkest moments.
A brave and bold novel about radical self-acceptance and living in the face of trauma.Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948-34005-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dottir Press
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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