Eloquent but overburdened.
A fictional small town adjusts to the changing concepts of American identity in this discourse-heavy novel crammed with characters and 1920s history.
In Basalt City, Ore., reporter Donna Swan, priest Father Schmidt, teacher Peggy York, temperance-movement–leader Daisy Newton, barber Emil Mazzoni, moonshiner Dixon Jones, and a “klavern” of Ku Kluxers are a mere sampling of the characters in Hobart’s saga. There’s no shortage of historical conflict: labor strikes, integration, immigration, Prohibition, etc.—and Hobart takes on more than enough. Every character grapples with contentious cultural issues, and at times, they embody archetypes. Open-minded and open-hearted Peggy York, for example, seems to represent the future. She’s even bold enough to criticize the Klan at a public event: “What kind of community do we have when it is argued that people who do not share our values are not just wrong but morally inferior?” she asks. “What will this prejudice do to our future economic growth and standard of living?” One of Hobart’s successful devices is the inclusion of meeting minutes from the Basalt City Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan, providing insight into the group’s thought process. However, Hobart relies heavily on dialogue, which is often too expository to be believed. Much of the novel’s plot is driven by civic debate, particularly an initiative to abolish private schools; the Klan, especially, fears the presence of Catholic schools. The school initiative dominates much of the novel’s first half, but when that matter is settled, other civic concerns rush in to take its place. “That summer,” Hobart writes, “Basalt City slipped off the edge of emotional excitement brought on by concern over the strike, the election, the legislature, the KKK march, and the black ghetto.” The omnipresent animus among some of the city’s residents leads to kidnapping, rape, hostage holding and suicides, each event laced with political motivations. However, in the rich but broad story, a surprisingly happy ending for many of the characters provides some relief.
Eloquent but overburdened.Pub Date: May 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-1480276086
Page Count: 414
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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