A well-wrought, moving saga of reservation life in the throes of change that feels both painful and exhilarating.
A Navajo Indian veteran of World War II—part of the famous “code talkers” unit—feels torn between tradition and the white man’s world in this absorbing tale of fractured identities.
Frustrated with his aimless life on an economically depressed Arizona reservation, 28-year-old Jimmie Goodluck signs up with the Marine Corps in 1942 and gets slotted into an all-Navajo platoon. Already toughened by hardscrabble desert life, the Navajo recruits thrive in the military, one of the few American institutions that treats them with respect (except when they’re mistaken for Japanese spies). They’re especially valued because of their assignment to develop a code based on the Navajo language, virtually impossible to decipher, for rapid radio communications. In an earnestly gung-ho but rather sketchy narrative, the war takes Jimmie and his comrades from Guadalcanal to the bloodbath at Iwo Jima. His story deepens when he comes home in 1946, horizons expanded, to a reservation where little seems to have changed: Jobs are scarce, poverty deep, racism ubiquitous and government callous. (The uncompensated slaughter of Navajo livestock to prevent overgrazing is a particular sore point.) During peyote rituals, he sees mystic visions that seem to endorse his father’s bitter suspicion of the white man. Yet Jimmie is also drawn to other forces, including a progressive family of tribal leaders and the fetching sister of a slain comrade who wants to help her people in thoroughly modern ways. Stillman (A Match Made in Hell, 2005) paints a rich portrait of Navajo life with an impressive depth and detail, steeping the reader in vibrant folkways and grand, austere landscapes. But he also portrays a backward-looking, claustrophobic society seething with ancient vendettas that shape and limit his characters. The subtle, sensitive prose captures the psychological complexity of the people who live there as they walk a tightrope bridge between a warm but fading past and a future of hope and uncertainty.
A well-wrought, moving saga of reservation life in the throes of change that feels both painful and exhilarating.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475955545
Page Count: 376
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A well-researched but low-impact story.
Three plucky heroines are connected by a love of books that helps them cope through the London Blitz.
Sofie Baumann survives a risky journey out of Berlin in the spring of 1939 thanks to a visa that sets her up as a housekeeper in London. But her employer is a villain who works her to the bone, and she has little news of the sister and father she left behind. A year later, she finds solace in the Bethnal Green Library, where the new deputy librarian, Juliet Lansdown, has started a book group with the help of Katie Upwood, a library assistant. Juliet is making use of a rare job opportunity, thanks to the absence of men, as well as distracting herself from the news that her fiance is considered a deserter. Katie, meanwhile, learns that her boyfriend is missing in action overseas and then realizes that she’s pregnant. The book club provides respite: Juliet leads nightly readings, and Sofie suggests a poetry reading. When the Blitz begins in earnest and the library is bombed, Juliet and the club set up a new library in the Bethnal Green Underground Station, where hundreds of neighborhood residents shelter at night. Along with the makeshift canteens and first aid clinics, the underground library serves its community. While the stakes are high for these characters and they each find themselves in truly dire situations, the book tends to focus more on exposition than inner lives. Crises resolve themselves quickly and seem to leave very little mark. Everyone always finds themselves back in the library, with chorus after narrative chorus about the power of books.
A well-researched but low-impact story.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9780593500385
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Dares to explore, in a hopeful way, the road taken.
Childhood sweethearts weather World War II, but their commitment is tested by a postwar clash of expectations.
In 1927, June Attwell, a vicar’s daughter, meets Alec Oswin, who has come from India to the English village of Fenbourne to live with his aunt after his parents’ deaths from cholera. Both are 8. There will never be any question, for either, of another soul mate. World War II disrupts but never alters their bond. June, a math prodigy, is tapped by charismatic mentor Floss Corbett to break codes for the Foreign Office. She is as exhilarated by the demands of her service as Alec is by his, piloting bombers. After distinguishing herself at Bletchley Park, June is sent to Ceylon to decipher Japanese dispatches. She is bound by the Official Secrets Act to never reveal either the locus or the exact nature of her assignments. Posey exposes a double standard: June understands Alec’s refusal to talk about how his hands were damaged when he was shot down or about his traumatic years in German and Russian POW camps. But Alec takes personal umbrage at June’s silence about the details of her war work—and wounds. He expects her to be a traditional wife and mother to their daughter, Penny. But June has always known that her love for Alec would war with her zeal for mathematics. On a business trip to Canada, in a Halifax boardinghouse, Alec receives a tempting glimpse of what happy, conventional domesticity looks like. June, in turn, is tempted by Floss’ repeated invitations to lend her talents to the Cold War. But aggression in this marriage is passive, and desperation is gradually displaced by acceptance. However disappointing, Posey’s climax-avoidance is arguably the most realistic approach for the time period. Occasionally, Posey inserts gratuitous message points, as when June tells Alec that Penny “should never have to make impossible choices about how best to use her gifts.” Posey’s prose is a joy, evocative and expertly cadenced.
Dares to explore, in a hopeful way, the road taken.Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-98-487962-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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