A bracingly realistic tale that pivots on a moment of sheer terror.
A husband and father loses his lower leg as a result of a tragic automobile accident in this novel.
Forty-one-year-old Jack Miller works as “a mechanical engineer in a small R & D company” in Woodfield, Connecticut. His spouse, Sasha, is described as “a take-charge mother and a wife in career mode” who works in the hospitality industry. Along with their two young children, George and Rose, the couple seem to lead a perfect life. But cracks begin to appear in their marriage, and Jack begins a short but steamy romance with Sandy, a realtor he is introduced to at his country club. Feeling a sudden pang of conscience, Jack visits Sandy to break off the affair and then leaves to pick up George and Rose in his SUV. Jack becomes distracted, and the vehicle careers off the road and into a lake. As the car fills with water, Jack attempts to save his children but finds that his mangled ankle is trapped in the wreckage. He regains consciousness in a hospital room, facing life as an amputee and the weight of his actions. During his darkest moments, Utah, an old friend, calls unexpectedly, and Jack’s life changes again. Barrett’s (I’ll Be Looking at the Moon, 2016) first novel was a story of resilience and second chances, and this new offering is thematically similar. As in her previous work, the author displays a talent for capturing the complexity of human connections. Describing the all-consuming nature of Jack’s affair, Barrett notes: “He had felt that when he was with her, he was inside an opaque microcosm from which he could not see beyond the space the two of them occupied.” Her writing is shrewd and analytical, meticulously mapping out Jack’s arduous psychological journey as the narrative progresses: “Only in his dreams was his sadness able to burst into his subconscious and plunder his brain to inflict its mortal wounds directly to his heart.” The author also accurately addresses the daily physical challenges faced by Jack as an amputee, such as the frustrations of putting on a pair of trousers when wearing a prosthesis. The story may appear unappealingly bleak to some readers, but Barrett provides slivers of hope throughout, resulting in a gut-wrenching but unexpectedly inspirational read.
A bracingly realistic tale that pivots on a moment of sheer terror.Pub Date: March 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-79875-295-1
Page Count: 239
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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