A valiant, if uneven, effort at describing a rich and complex literary life.
A historical novel elaborates on the life story of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
DuVernet’s book opens in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1837 with Pushkin in preparation for a duel that will cause his death. Rumors have circulated that his wife, Natalya, is involved with French officer Georges D’Anthes, and Pushkin’s receipt of an anonymous letter proclaiming him to be a “cuckold” only serves to fuel his rage. The duel with D’Anthes goes badly, and the poet is mortally wounded. Leaving Pushkin bleeding in the care of his wife and his valet, Nikita, the author backtracks to recount the poet’s earlier life. DuVernet expounds on key moments, such as Pushkin writing his first significant narrative verse, “Ruslan and Lyudmila”; his exile soon after on account of his radical political views; and his poetry being found in the possession of several Decembrist rebels. The author also describes the period following Pushkin’s publication of his masterpiece, the novel Eugene Onegin, including his marriage to Natalya and their roles in the imperial court. DuVernet makes a painstaking effort to lavishly embroider Pushkin’s life story with many creative details. But her approach has some significant flaws. The author’s writing style is unnecessarily wordy throughout, with a tendency toward overdescription: Pushkin’s “profile stood at attention, his posture poised, his sunken eyes squinted under a heavy brow, his sturdy jaw clenched as his pockmarked chin quaked, and his lips protruded into a serious frown.” DuVernet signals Pushkin’s African heritage, but her terminology is sometimes outdated: “His mulatto face appeared haggard.” In terms of research, the author is satisfied with evidence provided by a Pushkin scholar and critic in 1927 that the anonymous letter declaring the poet to be a cuckold was written by a man named Dolgoruky. DuVernet overlooks that this theory has since been contested, instead treating it as a “conclusive answer,” which may prove contentious among Pushkin scholars. Tenderly illustrated with charming, if naïve, uncredited sketches; Pushkin’s family tree; and a map of his travels, the novel clearly displays the author’s fervent interest in the Russian literary giant. Sadly, the execution of this work falls a bit short of the standards expected by lovers of great literature like Pushkin’s monumental works, and the research, although highly detailed, lacks breadth.
A valiant, if uneven, effort at describing a rich and complex literary life.Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4990-5294-7
Page Count: 530
Publisher: Xlibris US
Review Posted Online: April 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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