A large part of the diversion here involves our anticipation of what Enger will do next to echo Hamlet.
A debut novel of murder, sexual intrigue and revenge that deliberately channels Hamlet.
Jesse Matson tells his story in retrospect. Ten years before, his father, Harold, seemed to have killed himself while hunting with Jesse—at least suicide was ruled the official cause of death—but Jesse is suspicious. Shortly before this incident his father, mayor of the town of Battlepoint, Minn., and owner of the Valhalla restaurant, had made the controversial decision to use a budget surplus to provide low-income housing for workers, housing that was supposed to go on land currently occupied by a trailer park. This plan threatened the tenuous position of Harold’s wastrel brother, Clay, the manager of a turkey-processing plant with connections to the trailer park. Clay has nursed a grudge against Harold, who stole away Genevieve, his high-school girlfriend, and later married her. Jesse suspects that Clay is behind Harold’s death, a suspicion confirmed when Jesse sees the ghost of his father appearing across a frozen lake. The ghost echoes the advice Old Hamlet gives his son, “ ‘I didn’t shoot myself…You have to believe me’ ” and “ ‘[D]on’t tell your mother.’ ” From here the plot is set in motion, with Jesse trying to find evidence that will incriminate Clay in the death of Harold. Jesse confides in Christine, a kind of Hispanic Ophelia, and also in his Horatio-like friend Charlie. At one point Jesse even confronts his mother in the attic sauna, a hothouse closet scene. Perhaps the biggest deviation from Shakespeare’s play lies in the fact that Jesse lives to tell his story—and even Ophelia survives.
A large part of the diversion here involves our anticipation of what Enger will do next to echo Hamlet.Pub Date: July 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-316-00694-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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