Robinson has composed, with its cascading perfections of symbols, a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and...
The wait since 1981 and Housekeeping is over. Robinson returns with a second novel that, however quiet in tone and however delicate of step, will do no less than tell the story of America—and break your heart.
A reverend in tiny Gilead, Iowa, John Ames is 74, and his life is at its best—and at its end. Half a century ago, Ames’s first wife died in childbirth, followed by her new baby daughter, and Ames, seemingly destined to live alone, devoted himself to his town, church, and people—until the Pentecost Sunday when a young stranger named Lila walked into the church out of the rain and, from in back, listened to Ames’s sermon, then returned each Sunday after. The two married—Ames was 67—had a son, and life began all over again. But not for long. In the novel’s present (mid-1950s), Ames is suffering from the heart trouble that will soon bring his death. And so he embarks upon the writing of a long diary, or daily letter—the pages of Gilead—addressed to his seven-year-old son so he can read it when he’s grown and know not only about his absent father but his own history, family, and heritage. And what a letter it is! Not only is John Ames the most kind, observant, sensitive, and companionable of men to spend time with, but his story reaches back to his patriarchal Civil War great-grandfather, fiery preacher and abolitionist; comes up to his grandfather, also a reverend and in the War; to his father; and to his own life, spent in his father’s church. This long story of daily life in deep Middle America—addressed to an unknown and doubting future—is never in the slightest way parochial or small, but instead it evokes on the pulse the richest imaginable identifying truths of what America was.
Robinson has composed, with its cascading perfections of symbols, a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-374-15389-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
Most enjoyable for its smart, often humorous details about moviemaking and celebrity culture.
A portrait of the actress as a young woman.
We meet Molly Bit in a chapter called "College: 1993." It’s an arts school where “everybody wanted to be famous…and if they didn’t get famous, they might die right there in their beds.” Unlike the other kids, Molly Bit has no doubt that she will hit the mark, and after a brief second chapter called "Dues: 1997," we arrive at "Success: 2001." By now, Molly has made two movies with her best friend and has appeared in a three-page photo spread in Vanity Fair titled “Girl From the Future: Why in Six Months Everyone Will Know Who Molly Bit Is.” This proves to be no exaggeration—she soon reaches mega-star status, with the action figures and tabloid exposés to prove it. By "Venice: 2006," she’s got a publicist, a personal assistant, and a bodyguard she’s paying 50,000 euros for four days—because she also has a very persistent stalker. The plot of Bevacqua’s debut has a dramatic twist two-thirds of the way through, but there’s something a bit mechanical about it, and subsequent sections lose momentum. Though the author sets out to reveal the human being inside a Hollywood legend, Molly never quite comes into focus. We spend a fair amount of time inside her head, but her thoughts have a generic quality: “Southern California tried to rob you of your deep interiority. LA did. Hollywood. It was impossible not to lose at least some of it, for shallow thoughts and conversations to cast a spell that sealed a layer off. For six months she’d been contemplating an ass lift.” This feels more like a hypothesis about what an actress would think than what one specific, fully realized character thinks.
Most enjoyable for its smart, often humorous details about moviemaking and celebrity culture.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-0458-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
A wise and sad coming-of-age story showing how people are shaped by their losses. Recommended for both adult and teenage...
The tangled destinies of three kids growing up in a tightknit African-American community in Southern California.
“She was seventeen then. She lived with her father, a Marine, and without her mother, who had killed herself six months earlier. Since then the girl had earned a wild reputation—she was young and scared and trying to hide her scared in her prettiness.” Bennett’s debut novel tells the story of this grieving 17-year-old girl, Nadia, her best friend, Aubrey, and her boyfriend, Luke, told partly by Nadia and partly by a chorus of eponymous “Mothers,” the church ladies of Upper Room Chapel, where Luke’s father is the pastor. The three teenagers are drawn together by the damage they have already suffered: Luke’s promising football career was ended by a terrible injury; Aubrey has moved away from home to escape abuse by her stepfather. More trouble awaits when Nadia discovers she's carrying Luke’s baby and decides not to keep it. This decision creates a web of secrets that endures for decades—though the ever watchful, ever gossiping Mothers never stop sniffing around and suspecting. Nadia tries to escape the clutches of small-town drama by attending college and law school across the country, but when she returns home to care for her ailing father, she finds herself enmeshed in unfinished business. “All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we’d taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season.” Far from reliably offering love, protection, and care, in this book, the mothers cause all the trouble.
A wise and sad coming-of-age story showing how people are shaped by their losses. Recommended for both adult and teenage readers.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5247-0986-0
Page Count: 435
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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