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
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
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