A capable romance with fashionable period angles, yet the general impression is perfunctory.
Who is Clara Pickle? And why has Betty Dean’s grandmother left her a large sum of money? British novelist Jewell (After the Party, 2011, etc.) delivers the answers in a drawn-out tale of parallel destinies set in London’s Soho.
Moving to the island of Guernsey at age 10, Betty Dean meets Arlette Lafolley, her stylish stepgrandmother whom, a decade later, Betty will nurse through the closing chapters of her life. After Arlette dies, Betty learns the older woman has left her a little money, her wonderful vintage clothes and a mystery. The will names a stranger, Clara Pickle, last known at a Soho address, as the recipient of a much larger amount of cash; Betty decides to move to London, find Clara and start her own life. With Betty efficiently established in her new London home, Jewell then sets up the parallel story: Arlette’s arrival in the same city in 1919. Arlette’s friendships with a portrait painter and a black jazz musician become the subject of Betty’s search, narrated in alternating chapters. Betty makes new friends herself, including an attractive DJ/market stall holder and a famous rock musician. Both women are on voyages of discovery, both make mistakes, but whereas Arlette’s destiny goes distinctly haywire, Betty not only solves the mystery, but gets her guy as well.
A capable romance with fashionable period angles, yet the general impression is perfunctory.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0294-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2013
A masterful debut novel.
The evolving role of women in middle America in the second half of the 20th century is illuminated by the story of one Ohio family, its secrets and failures, its hopes and dreams.
The heart of this American domestic epic is expressed pretty neatly midway through by a delivery nurse tending to Ellie McGinty at the birth of her second child, an event missed by her troubled husband, Brick, and coordinated by a neighbor. Was it always like this? asks Ellie. Did women always have to rely on other women? "A woman’s world has always revolved around…other women," the nurse replies. "We love our men, and the idea of a husband is a good thing. What woman wouldn’t want that?” Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Schultz studies that question through generations of women: Ellie’s paternal grandmother, Ada, who raises the child her son abandoned; Brick’s mother, trapped in a brutally violent marriage that produced 12 children; Ellie herself, whose precipitous marriage to Brick in many ways marks the ruin of both of their lives; their daughter Samantha, who comes of age with Motown and career options. Like Jennifer Weiner’s Mrs. Everything, except with Catholics instead of Jews, the novel sharply illuminates evolving social mores and tucks in plenty of womanly wisdom. We go from Peyton Place (1956) to The Women’s Room (1977)—and, cleverly, both books make cameo appearances in the plot. More cleverness energizes the dialogue. How old were you when you fell in love with Grandpa? asks young Ellie in an early scene. “I’ll let you know,” Ada replies. “We only had five or six boys to pick from, and two got eliminated for inbreeding.” The minor characters in Schultz's fictional Erietown include some from central casting (a spinster aunt with a career, a caring basketball coach) and a few we haven’t seen as much of (including a somewhat sympathetic home-wrecker).
A masterful debut novel.Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-47935-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A blistering sendup of startup culture and a sprawling, ambitious, tender debut.
Startup culture and science fiction collide in this debut novel about love, loss, and coming-of-age.
Lucas and Margo are best friends, or something like it. The two cynical 20-somethings brave the oppressive Whiteness of startup culture together, downing beers at the bar around the corner from their office and commiserating about their clueless, immoral bosses. "Being black means you're merely a body—a fragile body," confesses Margo, a talented engineer with a penchant for SF, over drinks. "If there was a machine that could do it, I'd change places with you right now, Lucas….I would be an Asian man and I would move through the world unnoticed and nobody would bother me." In retaliation for being pushed out of their company, Margo decides to steal user data and convinces cautious Lucas to help. But when she is suddenly struck and killed by a car, Lucas is left to navigate their theft—and the emotional roller coaster of working in big tech as a minority—on his own. Nguyen, a former digital deputy editor for GQ and a veteran of Google and Amazon, has a keen eye for satire. He illuminates how "lean" startup companies led by young White men with little management experience manufacture crises only to dodge responsibilities to their users and staff. "I started Phantom with lofty principles, and I haven't given up on them," says one CEO without irony. "But we'll never achieve those ideals...if we run out of money first." Running alongside the dystopian horrors of Nguyen's workplace satire are the warmth and humor, sadness and vulnerability of Lucas' and Margo's voices. Using text messages, voicemails, message board posts, and short story snippets, Nguyen's novel spirals inward to capture the hang-ups, cultural obsessions, and fuzzy ambitions of his characters. "I'd hoped leaving behind all my material possessions would mean leaving behind all the things I'd become: a cruel friend, a workplace creep, an alcoholic," Lucas muses from his new, nomadic life in Tokyo. "Or maybe I was all those things to begin with." At last confronted with his own poor romantic and workplace behavior, Lucas must decide how he will honor his friend's memory and whether he will work to become a better person in the hazy promise—or possible tragedy—of the future.
A blistering sendup of startup culture and a sprawling, ambitious, tender debut.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-984855-23-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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