A vivid, immersive tale of decades past.
In Gottlieb-Walker’s novel, a passionate young photographer navigates turbulent times in the 1960s and ’70s.
From a young age, Maddy Garfield found herself documenting the world through a camera lens. She grew up in the apartment above the Folk Scene, a coffeehouse in Berkeley, California, which her parents opened in the ’50s; she honed her skills photographing the wide array of musicians that played on their stage in 1964. However, when college student Jake Morganstern answers a help-wanted ad—posted by Maddy’s mother, Blanche—the 15-year-old girl’s life is forever changed, especially after Blanche invites Jake to live in the family’s spare room. As Jake and Maddy spend more time together, he introduces her to a world beyond folk music, and she finds herself falling in love with him. Then he suddenly leaves without saying goodbye, and Maddy is crushed. She goes on to make her mark in the photography world and Jake finds success writing and directing films. Their paths repeatedly cross, and although sparks fly, the timing is never right—until they meet on the set of a movie in 1976, which might be the chance they’ve been waiting for. Gottlieb-Walker takes readers on a journey through the height of the rock ’n’ roll era with a tale that’s part travelogue and part romance, and it reads very much like a memoir. Evidence of Maddy’s extensive journeys is presented via rich, sensual details; it immerses readers in the story from the first page, which depicts a Vietnam War protest: “Adrenaline pumping, I clutched the borrowed Bolex camera protectively against my chest and fought my way through the panic-stricken crowd to the sidewalk.” The narrative is steeped in the political and cultural themes of the time, effectively highlighting the challenges faced by women fighting for their rights and young men fighting in Vietnam. Gottlieb-Walker makes full use of the first-person perspective to provide readers with an intimate, behind-the-scenes snapshot of the era’s film, music, and photography industries.
A vivid, immersive tale of decades past.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2025
ISBN: 9781916966833
Page Count: 320
Publisher: The Conrad Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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