Willig’s crossover into mainstream fiction heralds riches to come.
Multigenerational tale, from an author of popular Regency/historicals, takes a family from estates in England and Kenya to a Manhattan law firm.
Clemmie hopes to make partner after years as vassal to a petty tyrant in an Ivy League sweatshop. Her personal life is in shambles: Her engagement is off, and she’s still smarting from a disappointing Roman holiday with her stepcousin Jon, with whom she’s had a love-hate relationship since childhood. Now, though, her maternal ancestors are commanding more of Clemmie’s angst. Her once indomitable grandmother Addie, 99, is failing fast. Addie’s story intertwines with her granddaughter’s. After a 1906 accident claims the lives of her parents, young Addie’s uncle, an earl, takes her to live at his stately home, Ashford, ruled by his imperious countess, Vera. Almost immediately, Addie is welcomed as a sister and confidante by her impetuous cousin Bea. Back in 1999, Clemmie suspects that her mother is prevaricating about Addie’s past. As the story of Bea and Addie evolves, so does the enigma. After the girls make their post–World War I debuts, Bea marries a marquess (to Vera’s relief), and Addie, the poor relation, accompanies Bea to her opulent London pied-à-terre. However, as Addie occupies herself with intellectual self-improvement, Bea’s social status is threatened by the marquess’ philandering. To avenge herself, she steals Addie’s beau, Frederick. Everything explodes when the marquess learns of Bea’s pregnancy by Frederick. The action shifts to Kenya, where the characters re-enact an edgier version of Out of Africa. While on an ill-advised safari, Bea disappears. Since she is presumed dead, and husband Frederick, after a rather cursory investigation, is presumed innocent, Addie and Frederick are free to marry and become the progenitors Clemmie always thought she had. The panoramic canvas Willig chooses to cover is a bit overambitious—the law firm minutia, although entertaining, is essentially a digression—but she makes up for the unwieldiness with sharp, scintillating dialogue and expert scene-craft.
Willig’s crossover into mainstream fiction heralds riches to come.Pub Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-01449-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 28, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Brimming with warmth and vitality, this new novel by the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) is a paean to the power of female courage. The butterflies are four smart and lovely Dominican sisters growing up during Trujillo's despotic regime. While her parents try desperately to cling to their imagined island of security in a swelling sea of fear and intimidation, Minerva Mirabal—the sharpest and boldest of the daughters, born with a fierce will to fight injustice—jumps headfirst into the revolutionary tide. Her sisters come upon their courage more gradually, through a passionate, protective love of family or through the sheer impossibility of closing their eyes to the horrors around them. Together, their bravery and determination meld into a seemingly insurmountable force, making Trujillo, for all his power, appear a puny adversary. Alvarez writes beautifully, whether creating the ten-year-old Maria Teresa's charming diary entries or describing Minerva's trip home after her first unsettling confrontation with Trujillo: ``As the road darkened, the beams of our headlights filled with hundreds of blinded moths. Where they hit the windshield, they left blurry marks, until it seemed like I was looking at the world through a curtain of tears.'' If the Mirabal sisters are iron-winged butterflies, their men—father and husbands—often resemble those blinded moths, feeble and fallible. Still, the women view them with kind, forgiving eyes, and though there's no question of which sex is being celebrated here, a sweet and accepting spirit toward frailty, if not human cruelty, prevails. This is not Garc°a M†rquez or Allende territory (no green hair or floating bodies); Alvarez's voice is her own, grounded in realism yet alive with the magic of everyday human beings who summon extraordinary courage and determination to fight for their beliefs. As mesmerizing as the Mirabal sisters themselves. (First printing of 40,000; $40,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 1-56512-038-8
Page Count: 344
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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