The wittiest political novel we've seen in some time, and a fine beginning to what one hopes is this accomplished...
The final days in power of Panama's military strongman Manuel Noriega are the subject of this savvy and bleakly comic first fiction by New Yorker reporter Wright (Twins: Their Remarkable Double Lives—and What They Tell Us About Who We Are, 1998, etc.).
Wright's "Tony" Noriega is an appalling, fascinating, and at times even sympathetic figure. He enters the novel following an account of the discovery of populist "revolutionary" Hugo Spandafora's headless corpse, and a brief dose of the irreverent cynicism indulged by Archbishop Morette, "banished" to Panama City by the Vatican. Noriega, at this time, is in Geneva, receiving extreme-measure medical treatment for "acne vulgaris." Thereafter, the story careens gracefully between illustrations of Noriega's iron-fisted rule (specifically, as experienced first-hand by the Archbishop's idealistic and unworldly subordinate, Father Jorge Ugarte) and often hilarious debunkings of the Great Man's relationships with puppet politicos who clamor for at least the appearance of authority, military aides who inconveniently develop consciences, Noriega's wrathful wife Felicidad and petulant mistress Carmen, murderous Colombian drug-lord Pablo Escobar and neighboring fellow dictator Fidel Castro; even visiting "diplomat" Colonel Oliver North (who blithely preaches George Bush's gospel of international pragmatism). There are horrors aplenty, and handsome, earnest Father Jorge offers the perfect contrast to the introverted, paranoid, deeply insecure General Noriega, whose most trusted associates are the specimens that reside in his private aviary (notably, Pepe, "a neurotic sulfur-crested cockatoo") and his personal "psychic," witch-doctor, and sex consultant, Santeria priest Gilbert Blancarte. Wright takes no prisoners (even a well-meaning former "Presidente" imagines himself "a soldier of economic enlightenment, imposing the stern teachings of Milton Friedman on the Third World, much as the Conquistadors had imposed bloody Christianity on the savages of the past"), in a vigorous full-dress satiric farce that neatly skewers the self-righteous mendacity of all the Americas, ours very much included.
The wittiest political novel we've seen in some time, and a fine beginning to what one hopes is this accomplished journalist's second career.Pub Date: March 9, 2000
ISBN: 0-684-86810-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2000
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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