PAINTED HORSES

Name: PAINTED HORSES
Author: Malcolm Brooks
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2164-6

by Malcolm Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 5, 2014

It’s a sight better than The Bridges of Madison County, but it’s a kindred project: Boy meets girl under open sky, boy...

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A mid-1950s oater that wants to come over all cowboy and sensitive at the same time.

Catherine Lemay, the heroine of Brooks’ debut, is a young archaeologist who’s seen the aftermath of war poking around in the rubble of London. John H—she thinks it could stand for “horses,” but “hell raiser” is a reasonable candidate—rides the Western fence line, following the mustangs. He’s known war up close, a member of the last American horse cavalry unit to see combat, fighting the Germans in Italy. It stands to reason that, Montana being a small state and all, they’ll meet and become intertwined like two wind-blasted strands of barbed wire. When Mr. H funs, he funs, but when he and Catherine get serious, well….There’s plenty to be serious about apart from sad reflections on the war, for a dam is coming to the coulee in which the mustangs run, and both Catherine and John H have to make a stand: Do they serve progress, or do they fight for what’s real about the West? Brooks does a good job of plotting, following parallel stories that speak to that large question through characters who are more than just symbols—though they’re that, too. There’s some fine writing here, especially when it comes to horses and the material culture that surrounds them, and when it comes to Western landscapes, too, for Brooks knows that in good Western writing, the land is always a character. There’s also some overwriting, along the lines of “[s]he wanted Audrey Williams to keep talking, wanted to know her story too, the fragments and pieces and the buried mysteries, wanted the whole vicarious treasure of it.” A little of that goes a long way, especially when Brooks places himself inside Catherine’s head—and, from time to time, elsewhere in her body.

It’s a sight better than The Bridges of Madison County, but it’s a kindred project: Boy meets girl under open sky, boy kisses girl, girl emotes, and then it’s a whole new shooting match.

Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2014

ISBN: 978-0-8021-2164-6

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: July 1, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION

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MONKEY HUNTING

by Cristina García ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 22, 2003

Sometimes more interesting for its revelation of little-known aspects of Cuban history than for its revelation of...

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García’s third (after The Aguero Sisters, 1997, etc.) again lyrically portrays several generations of a Cuban family, this one with Chinese roots.

In 1857, a Westerner in Amoy fools 20-year-old Chen Pan into signing on for indentured labor in Cuba, where “the women were eager and plentiful [and] . . . even the river fish jumped, unbidden, into frying pans.” After the horrific sea voyage disabuses him of such fantasies, Chen Pan survives more than two years on a sugar plantation, befriending some of the African slaves before escaping to Havana, where he prospers as a merchant and buys a young black woman who becomes his lifelong companion. Interwoven with the couple’s history are narratives about their granddaughter, Chen Fang, born in 1899 during her father’s brief sojourn in China, and their great-grandson, Domingo Chen, who immigrated to New York with his father in 1967. Chen Fang becomes a victim of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and Domingo falls in love with a prostitute while serving in Vietnam, but their stories are sketchy and pallid compared to the richness of Chen Pan’s experiences in Havana, a city with a multicultural vigor drawn from the clamor of different cultures and races. In 1867, in Havana, “the vendors hawked fresh okra and star apples, sugarplums, parakeets, and pigs’ feet . . . [and] from the moment he arrived, [Chen Pan] knew it was where he belonged.” His descendants in China and America never belong in the same way, and their tales are left unfinished, though the novel hints at sad ends. Chen Pan, by contrast, survives the loss of his beloved Lucrecia to see dramatic changes in now-independent Cuba, and he dies drinking the red wine a friend had promised would make him immortal.

Sometimes more interesting for its revelation of little-known aspects of Cuban history than for its revelation of characters, but Chen Pan lingers in the memory as a brooding, contemplative patriarch.

Pub Date: April 22, 2003

ISBN: 0-375-41056-2

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2003

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
VANISHING MAPS
by Cristina García

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HERE IN BERLIN
by Cristina García

- BOOK REVIEW
KING OF CUBA
by Cristina García

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A BRIDGE ACROSS THE OCEAN

by Susan Meissner ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2017

An interesting World War II narrative is dragged down by a less-engaging present-day story.

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A woman who can see ghosts becomes tangled in a mystery involving European war brides who crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary.

Brette has had the sight since she was a little girl. The ability to see the dead runs in her family, but ever since an aunt told her she was better off ignoring the ghosts she encounters, that’s exactly what she’s done. That is, until an old classmate needs her help and Brette inadvertently becomes drawn into the lives of three women from the past. As Brette communicates with a spirit and tries to unravel the mystery behind one of the ship’s tragedies, Meissner (Secrets of a Charmed Life, 2015, etc.) also tells the stories of two of the ship’s passengers: Annaliese Lange, who is escaping from a marriage to a Nazi, and Simone Devereux, who lost her family in the war. Annaliese's and Simone’s stories are engaging and heartbreaking; Brette’s point of view, though, is less interesting and never seems as urgent. Also, the multiple points of view are occasionally hard to keep track of, especially when it isn’t yet clear how they intersect. Although the stories of Annaliese and Simone are captivating and well-researched, readers may find themselves wishing Meissner had devoted more of the book to the women on the ship and less to Brette and her ability to see ghosts.

An interesting World War II narrative is dragged down by a less-engaging present-day story.