The good news is that Schmidt still feels he has 10 years to live, which likely means at least one more novel.
In the third of the Schmidt novels, what had been described as a comedy of manners turns tragic and redemptive.
Updike had Rabbit, Roth has Zuckerman, Richard Ford has Bascombe and Begley has Schmidt. While all serve a similar purpose, to illuminate American life and culture through the passages of one man’s maturation, the return of “Schmidtie” represents a significant advance from preceding volumes (Schmidt Delivered, 2000, etc.). An even longer interval has passed in Schmidt’s life than between books, since the protagonist readers knew in his early 60s is now 78 (it’s hard to imagine Jack Nicholson continuing in this role). Now deep into his second career, as a retired lawyer turned foundation head, he is much more concerned with topical events—wars and terrorism and politics (he loves Obama). And he has found new love with a woman who is more age appropriate, merely 15 years his junior (in contrast with the promiscuous waitress, younger than his daughter, who continues to play a key role in his life). Artistically and thematically, this is the most ambitious novel in the Schmidt cycle, also the longest, and it requires familiarity with the earlier volumes to appreciate its richness. It ties the ends left loose at the conclusion of the last—his relationships with his daughter and his former lover, and the anticipation of the two babies that will make him a grandfather (and perhaps a father as well). Yet chronologically this isn’t a mere continuation of the Schmidt narrative, but one that finds him reflecting (“stepping back”), coming to terms with some pivotal episodes that were either downplayed or omitted from the first two novels. He has arrived at a place where he feels he has “at last grown up,” possibly capable of a “rebirth.” Yet, given the course his life has taken and the stage at which he has arrived, he compares himself to Lear and Job, facing what is likely his “last chance.”
The good news is that Schmidt still feels he has 10 years to live, which likely means at least one more novel.Pub Date: March 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-307-70065-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2012
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
