Enger writes in an expansive style suitable to his sprawling subject.
Set in 1886, Enger’s novel embraces not one but three journeys that involve guilt, expiation and redemption.
The first quest is that of Ulysses Pope, who lives with his wife, Gretta, and two sons, Eli and Danny. One day, Ulysses ups and disappears from their home in Sloan’s Crossing, Minnesota, leaving no note and no reason to part. For the previous year—in fact, ever since he was baptized—Gretta had noticed some strange behavior in her husband but nothing to make her think he'd leave home. Although Eli is only a teenager, he quickly decides to pursue his father to find out what happened. He tries to sneak away in the dead of night but finds that Danny has followed him; even though his brother is rather sickly, Eli lets him stay on the quest in pursuit of their father. Meanwhile, in a plot development that would reek of soap opera if it weren’t so well-handled, moneylender Mead Fogarty is putting pressure on Gretta to acknowledge that her husband has left permanently and that her best opportunity for economic survival resides with him. Eli and Danny finally catch up with their father, who, it turns out, has led something of a secret life: He was in Custer’s Indian campaign out West and committed an atrocity against an Indian family. The motive for his journey has been to try to make amends for his crime. The psychology of character deepens as, along the way, he starts to get involved in the third quest of the novel—hunting in Montana with a scientist/taxidermist from the Smithsonian who wants to kill buffalo and have them stuffed so their legacy will not be lost on future generations.
Enger writes in an expansive style suitable to his sprawling subject.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61620-375-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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