Creaky and ponderous but occasionally eye-opening take on George Washington's less-than-brilliant career as spy, commander, and possible instigator of the French and Indian War. As portrayed by Kilian, a Capitol Hill correspondent and novelist (The Big Score, 1993, etc.), Gentleman George, still in his 20s in 1754, was a fastidious, patronizing bumbler of such preening ambition and political naivetÇ that it's a wonder he's still on the dollar bill. Young sea captain Tick Morley, who likes books and baths, confesses that, as charismatic as towering Major Washington appears, the only thing admirable about him is how well he rides a horse. Morley nevertheless agrees to carry Washington's letters to Virginia's Colonial Governor Dinwiddie and to the brilliant, bawdy Mr. Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia. Upon learning that Morley is a virgin, Franklin drags the youngster to a bordello, then regales him with a vision of vast political forces lining up to decide the destiny of the American colonies. Franklin, who shines on these pages, believes that the flawed but impressive Washington, if he's not killed by the French, just might emerge as a leader of a rebellion against King George. He encourages Morley to spy on George, who is, in turn, spying on the French for Governor Dinwiddie. Washington founders in the Alleghenies and, while pining for the tempestuously married Sally Fairfax, ambushes a group of Frenchmen, thus starting the 1755 war that culminates in the disastrous humiliations of Washington and the British General Edward Braddock. Morley witnesses Washington's picaresque pratfalls with a mixture of embarrassed rage and boyish astonishment, as Washingtonscoundrel, hypocrite, and swooning romanticbecomes an unlikely symbol of the unlikely nation he will one day lead. Once past the leaden, pseudo18th-century colonial prose, it becomes clear that Kilian's tale is less about Washington and more about the crazy things men do when they're in loveand about the awful price women must pay as the objects of such inspiration.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-18131-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1998
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
