A moving novel about an unwavering affection that begins in a time of adversity.
In Jones’ debut historical novel based on actual events, a romance between a young mother and a pilot blossoms after a ship is stranded in South West Africa during World War II.
In 1942, Alison Habib travels to Cairo on the Dunedin Star, a cargo liner that also carries 12 passengers. She’s only 22 years old and is accompanied by her 18-month-old daughter and Egyptian husband. The ship strikes a sandbar unexpectedly and must be abandoned, so the passengers and crew brave tempestuous Atlantic waters until they reach the shore of South West Africa (now Namibia), called the Skeleton Coast. After multiple rescue missions fail, the survivors are forced to attempt a 700-mile overland trek to a military outpost. During one of the unsuccessful rescues, a pilot, Lt. Russell Townshend, lands on the beach in a B-25 bomber but is unable to take off again, stranding him with the others. Alison immediately feels drawn to the newcomer, and the two pass the time in rapt conversation. She keeps a diary of the experience, which she ultimately gives to one of her best friends—author Jones’ wife. In an extraordinary coincidence, Jones later orders a book about the shipwreck in 2003 from a bookstore owned by an elderly, infirm Townshend; he soon decides to give Townshend the diary as well as a letter that Alison wrote but never sent. Jones ambitiously braids several different narratives together into one coherent tapestry: Alison’s ordeal on the Dunedin Star; his wife Joanne’s friendship with her; his own history with his wife; and the attempt to communicate with Townshend in the twilight of his life. As a result, the story is a bit cramped, especially due to the fact that it’s so brief, but Jones is careful to avoid causing readers any chronological confusion. It helps that the tale is a powerfully dramatic one about survival in the face of unexpected danger and about a love that spanned decades. Lurking subtly but poignantly in the background is the author’s own love story, which seemingly inspires Alison to share a lifelong secret.
A moving novel about an unwavering affection that begins in a time of adversity.Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4834-6824-2
Page Count: 124
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
