A strongly written tale about resurrecting a marriage under the most unusual and mysterious of circumstances.
A woman suffering from amnesia doesn’t realize she’s been separated for years from the husband who cares for her in this debut novel.
Helena Bachlein works in advertising in Berlin. Separated from her husband, Joachim, for almost three years, she begins to date again. But after a meeting at a local cafe, she is hit by a truck and lands in the hospital with broken ribs, a broken arm, a broken ankle, and amnesia. Joachim is called to the hospital, and since Helena can’t remember the accident or the past three years, she thinks that they are still together. He doesn’t tell her they are separated and is conflicted about when to break the news. He also neglects to inform her that she has her own apartment and brings her back to his place, explaining that most of her things were put in the basement after a water leak. The internet isn’t working; she doesn’t have a cellphone; and the apartment is on the fourth floor. He contacts Helena’s employer and arranges for her to telecommute, with Joachim returning work to the office via flash drive. A jarring visit from a co-worker named Doro changes everything since she hasn’t heard of Joachim. Helena discovers that she has her own apartment. While Joachim struggles to decide if his attempt at saving the marriage has backfired, the tension intensifies as Helena concludes that she must decide whether she should stay in a relationship that she left behind long ago. Hausler’s novel gives equal time to both Helena’s and Joachim’s thoughts, which is crucial in the sort of psychological drama she has crafted. Careful attention is paid to details that may jog Helena’s memory, including people and places, but also German language conventions. As the story dives deeper into the layers of memory, each word that is spoken or left unsaid becomes important in a cat-and-mouse mind game that gives this pensive story some elements of a thriller. The love that’s described is always on thin ice (“But the moment he touches her, the spell will break, and they’ll just be two people in bed together, without any enchantments”). Hausler’s ability to describe the precarious state of the emotions involved is consistently convincing.
A strongly written tale about resurrecting a marriage under the most unusual and mysterious of circumstances.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-946154-02-6
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Meerkat Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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