A funny and dark sensibility can’t quite overcome the flaws of this novel, which ends with plenty of unfinished business,...
A coming-of-age debut novel from London-based author Hudson.
This (apparently semiautobiographical) novel traces the first 16 years of the life of a Scottish girl, born into picaresque poverty to a single mother, who is trying to find a man (any man) who can help them elevate their circumstances and secure some stability. The problems (in the novel and with it) begin with the protagonist’s birth, because she is apparently the narrator as soon as she leaves the womb. And both her perceptive abilities and language (often foulmouthed) vary widely, as the reader must determine how much faith to put in a narrator who can neither walk nor talk and who may (or may not) realize how dire (or not) her circumstances might be. Yet, it’s a testament to the author’s compelling voice that the reader feels he or she knows and cares about narrator Janie, her mother, Iris, and many of the ne’er-do-wells they encounter on life’s crooked path. Beyond the frequent profanity, the language abounds with working-class colloquialism: “Grandma had cooked mince, tatties and skirlie.” Janie never knows her father, supposedly an American, but his would-be substitutes range from “a known psychopath” involved in the drug trade to a deadbeat who can’t find or keep work. After the birth of a second daughter, Iris suffers from depression and drugs, leaving preschool Janie to holler, “I’m warning yeh, I’m the grown-up here. I’m the ma!” Aside from a family that is loving in its way, Janie ultimately values “those librarians [who] were the only ones who knew how much hope was snagged in those books.’’ (Sounds like a budding author.) And the greatest fear, for the reader at least, is that her fate will simply recycle her mother’s, that, as Iris says, “Aye, we’re peas in a pod alright Janie.”
A funny and dark sensibility can’t quite overcome the flaws of this novel, which ends with plenty of unfinished business, suggesting a sequel or a series.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-14-312464-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
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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