An engaging and articulate family saga with a likable protagonist.
A debut novel traces the rise and fall of an early postwar suburban subdivision, as told through three generations of a family that called the sprawling development home.
The fictional Arboria Park, carved out of farmland and apple orchards, was built in 1951 to accommodate the burgeoning population as American troops returned from war and began producing the baby boomer generation. The book opens in 1960, by which time the suburban complex has grown to about 500 houses, including modest private homes and smaller town house–style units often rented to members of the military stationed at a nearby Air Force base. Stacy Halloran, 5 years old in 1960, is the youngest of four siblings and the primary narrator of a story that spans more than 50 years. A fascination with houses leads to her early and continued study of the neighborhood. “I love houses,” she tells her father. “They’re interesting. I want to draw every house here.” Wall uses Stacy to relate the history of suburban development. Ultimately, she begins a movement to protest the intended demolition of Arboria Park in the early 2000s. Each of the Halloran siblings faces individual crises and rebellions—Mary deals with an unhappy, short-lived shotgun marriage; Tommy leaves home to become an actor; Matt, who is gay, seeks acceptance in his community; and Stacy struggles to find love and her own purpose in life. The Halloran family—and Aboria Park itself—effectively serves as a composite of a changing America as it moves through the second half of the 20th century, roiled by the Vietnam War, counterculture music, casual sex, increased drug use, and a grudging acceptance of racial intermarriage. Contemporary songs form a backdrop to the engrossing narrative, exemplified by the “punk house,” where young, local players congregate and perform. But Wall’s ambitious tale with multiple characters sometimes lacks dramatic tension. And about a third of the way through the novel, in 1979, the author turns the first-person narration temporarily over to Autumn, Mary’s daughter. By 1980, Stacy, an appealing heroine, is back at the helm. The switch is a bit discordant, but it ultimately gives readers a personal view of a new generation of angst.
An engaging and articulate family saga with a likable protagonist.Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63152-167-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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