A compelling, lyrical, and resonant debut.
Each summer during the 1930s and '40s, men from Japan, the Philippines, Russia, Scandinavia, and Washington state flocked to the Yup’ik hamlet of Nushagak Village in Alaska’s Bristol Bay to work in local canneries.
For well-trained fisherperson Anne Girl and her mother, Marulia, both Native Alaskans, the arrival of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Norwegian named John Nelson sets the wheels of profound change into motion. Teenage Anne Girl starts seeing John in secret, but eventually the liaison becomes public. Disapproving Marulia wants to know if John is “good for anything” since he seems ill-suited for both sea and factory life. Even more concerning, Marulia worries that John may be an undercover missionary since he's staying with Frederik and Nora Killweather, Christian evangelists eager to bring the populace to Christ. But Anne Girl doesn’t care. John is an ace storyteller, and she finds his intricate tales enchanting. Soon, the two marry and have a child. Throughout, Anne Girl continues to fish and teaches her daughter everything she knows about preparing nets, catching salmon, readying a boat to set sail, and reading tides and weather patterns. John, meanwhile, learns to fly and becomes the area’s sole pilot, ferrying food, medicine, mail, and sundries between the remote village and the large trading post in Dillingham. It’s an intriguing and important window into life among an Indigenous people and beautifully illustrates the push and pull of assimilation in pre-state Alaska. At the same time, since the action begins in 1939 and continues into the late 1940s, the narrative’s omission of World War II seems odd. Still, the depiction of the customs and oral traditions of the community make this a fascinating coming-of-age story, touching upon sexuality, gender, death, friendship, alcoholism, and the inevitability of cultural shifts.
A compelling, lyrical, and resonant debut.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59709-809-0
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Red Hen Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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