by Maryann D'Agincourt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2014
A precisely rendered image of a quest to tease out life’s larger meaning.
Awards & Accolades
Our Verdict
GET IT
In D’Agincourt’s (All Most, 2013, etc.) novel, a woman reflects on her family’s shared history and the shadow it has cast on her own life.
“Art requires philosophy, just as philosophy requires art. Otherwise, what would become of beauty?” This fundamental question, once posed by French artist Paul Gauguin, forms the scaffolding for this novel. Its protagonist, Jocelyn, takes a piercing, introspective look at her past. It’s only now, as a middle-aged woman, that she recognizes that every family “possesses a prevailing philosophy”—one that brings them together in complex ways. For her and her parents, the central fulcrum was art, and in her own life, the “philosophy” was manifested by a Canadian painter, Alex Martaine, whose work appears to have been inspired by Gauguin’s. Alex’s affair with Jocelyn’s mother deeply unsettled Jocelyn, who was, at the time, a teenager on the cusp of adulthood. In the present day, she uses the title of Gauguin’s painting “Where Do We Come From?, What Are We?, Where Are We Going?” (pictured on the book’s cover) as the basis for her own voyage of self-discovery. In three sections that tackle each of the title’s questions, Jocelyn takes readers from her claustrophobic early years through middle age as she searches for the meaning of life. Although her early rebellion takes a familiar, almost predictable form, readers may overlook it as one of the few weapons in a confused teenager’s arsenal. D’Agincourt’s economical prose is frustratingly clinical at times, working much too hard to adhere to the “glimpses” promised in the novella’s title; as a result, it gives readers little else. Yet these moments mirror the feel of childhood and the gradual process of self-realization remarkably well—images pieced together in broad brush strokes. At one point, for example, Jocelyn looks at the aforementioned Gauguin painting and observes that its “rich and exotic” colors are “out of keeping with the detachment in the characters’ faces....The uninhibited sensuality oppresses me, entraps me.”
A precisely rendered image of a quest to tease out life’s larger meaning.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0989174558
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Portmay Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 24, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
More by Maryann D'Agincourt
BOOK REVIEW
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.