An intoxicating variant of the afterlife through the eyes of auspicious characters.
Hell is split into two factions, with one side searching for redemption while both recruit the Newly Dead for an inevitable war in this debut supernatural thriller.
People condemned to hell enter through the Pit. These aren’t demons but rather the dead in shell bodies looking the same as when they perished on Earth. Marcus, a Roman dead some 2,000 years by 2011, has controlled hell almost the entire time he’s been there. He’s most often in the Pit to recruit people for what he calls his team. There are those working against Marcus, however, led by Deborah Molinksy, a Jewish woman who instills a belief in others that salvation is still possible. Four people arrive in hell around the same time: 17-year-old Allison Yates, Arab-Englishman Siddig El Tariq, widower Christoph Schmidt, and volunteer counselor Nadia Patel. They’ve each died in different ways but are all in hell for essentially the same reason, which they don’t immediately know. They ultimately must determine if they want to join Marcus’ team or follow Deborah, a decision that may hinge on The Gate above, where some of the dead go but which certainly isn’t the serene notion of heaven. Marcus would just as soon destroy bodies before losing recruits, but even a few on Deborah’s side believe that a violent confrontation seems unavoidable. This surprisingly insightful story zeroes in on its characters. Allison, for one, may be the reincarnation of Christoph’s wife, Sabine, allowing both (Allison with her new memories) to come to terms with Sabine’s death. Similarly, Heinrich von Helldorf, who perished during World War II, has become a self-hating Nazi and holds the magnanimous Deborah in reverence. Hell’s certainly a bleak place, and the fact that some characters who’ve reached The Gate have chosen hell instead makes the afterlife seem even darker. But hope shines bright throughout, epitomized by Nadia’s sanguine declaration: “This universe gave us a means of contrition, and we would feel inadequate if we ignored that.” There’s resolution regarding why characters, even the seemingly good ones, are in hell and how redemption is feasible, with an unmistakable open ending.
An intoxicating variant of the afterlife through the eyes of auspicious characters.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68222-705-3
Page Count: 460
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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