A message-driven narrative that encourages women to follow their own paths.
A 19th-century patriarchy cannot stop an independent woman and her granddaughter from determining their futures in this debut novel.
Emma Wool, born in 1812—the fifth child and only daughter of a prosperous wool merchant in the village of Greenland—is raised in a severely misogynistic society. Her only future rests in acquiring a suitable husband, for whom she must produce sons. Her father clarifies the gender demarcation when she is age 6 and wants to go outside with her brothers: “You are a girl; you can’t play with boys anymore.” And so Emma is eventually married off to Arthur Waves, a “great warrior,” who becomes a devoted husband—until her first pregnancy results in the birth of twin girls, Alice and Rose. Arthur becomes indifferent and cruel, and the townsfolk turn against her. When she next gives birth to twin sons, Albert and Fred, her social position, if not her warm feelings toward Arthur, is re-established. Arthur is killed in battle, and Emma, the respected widow of a hero, inherits his house and land. This is when she begins to shine. Determined to control her own destiny, she refuses to consider another marriage and devotes her life to raising her four small children and to building the most successful farm in Greenland. Enduring a lifetime of plot twists and tragedies, Emma presses on, ultimately finding joy in the knowledge that her youngest granddaughter, Mary, has the same strength and independence that has propelled her. The sometimes-overwrought novel reads much like an extended fable, with an implicit, scathing indictment of the mistreatment of women. Kallas’ text is linguistically simple, with few descriptions. Greenland does not exist in any specific country (it is just the name of a farming village), creating a sense of dislocation in the reader. Surnames are generic—Wool, Waves, Great—and characters, with the exception of Mary, are two-dimensional, serving more as archetypes. Emma is the backbone of the story, but readers often are not privy to her internal life. The deftly developed Mary is the one they get to know more intimately.
A message-driven narrative that encourages women to follow their own paths.Pub Date: March 5, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4908-2825-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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