World War II buffs may enjoy a glimpse into the lives of real people not just during, but after the war—and current veterans...
Tappenden’s debut work of historical fiction is based on the real-life, World War II–era story of British soldier Ted “Ham and Jam” Tappenden and his wife, Florrie.
While one might expect the soldier’s heroic figure to dominate a war tale, here, it’s the soldier’s wife who steals the show. The novel opens with Florrie’s unorthodox tomboy childhood and then portrays the burgeoning relationship between her and Tappenden (then a soon-to-be soldier). Soon they’re married; he’s called to war, and Florrie’s left to navigate the trauma of repeated bombings and uncertainty at home. Meanwhile, Ted miraculously survives his part in the D-Day assault on the Pegasus and Horsa bridges. The actual events of the war skate by fleetingly in the first third of the book, but they color all the rest of it, which is dedicated to Ted and Florrie’s attempts to reignite their connection. He comes home physically unscathed but emotionally absent, and while she at first appears to be the more sound of the two, that changes as the years go on. Tappenden creates some beautiful descriptions, even in the midst of tragedy, as when he describes what Florrie sees after a German plane crashes just two doors down from her house: “[S]he recognised a large piece of red chimney pot lying like a wound amongst the dark green cauliflowers and, nearby, a sliver of tile, razor sharp, was embedded in the trunk of an apple tree.” Tappenden’s best work, however, sometimes gets lost in a penchant for overwrought descriptions. He also skips a few vital reference points, sometimes leaving the reader wondering what decade it is, and he never provides the source material for the story—or how much might be imagined to fill in the gaps.
World War II buffs may enjoy a glimpse into the lives of real people not just during, but after the war—and current veterans or those who love them may find the intergenerational similarities intriguing.Pub Date: June 6, 2013
ISBN: 978-1909121317
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Acorn Independent Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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