A compelling story of a woman’s trauma and strength.
A young woman struggles against the strict social roles of 1910 Albania in Dukes’ debut historical novel.
In the mountain village where Diana Aganis lives with her father, Frenk, and stepmother, Mirlinda, society is governed by an ancient code known as “the Laws of Lekë Dukagjini.” Under the laws, a man’s honor is everything, revenge killings and blood feuds are commonplace, and women are little more than property, like “a sack, made to endure.” Diana has dreamed of escape since she was 5 years old, when a visiting foreign woman’s sketches sparked her interest in art and let her know that feminine existence could be more than drudgery. Luckily, her father encourages her creative endeavors, and they travel to the nearby city of Shkodra to meet a priest who can help her attend art school in Venice. Then Frenk is shot dead in the street, the apparent victim of an honor killing. Diana makes the only choice she can to protect herself and Mirlinda: she becomes a “sworn virgin,” taking a vow of chastity “in order to gain the right to live like a man…inherit property, earn a living, carry a gun, and kill for vengeance”—which she does, after tracking down her father’s killer. Then she falls in love, putting her vow and her life in danger. Overall, Dukes has chosen an engaging setting for this novel, with its mix of medieval and modern elements, and fleshes it out with vivid details, such as the simple meals of goat cheese, cornbread, and yogurt and the elaborate costumes that show clan affiliation and social status with different patterns (“Diana did not recognize the pattern of the braiding, so she was unsure what tribe they came from”). Diana herself is portrayed as plausibly independent-minded without feeling like a feminist anachronism; for example, at one point, she concludes that “Sheep had more freedom [than women], and were less likely to be hit by their owner.”
A compelling story of a woman’s trauma and strength.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5175-4736-3
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PROFILES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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