A tragic and beautiful story that manages to retain a wise and hopeful tone.
At the dawn of World War I, two brothers fight for survival in the midst of the Armenian genocide in Mekaelian’s debut novel.
In 1971, the Hagopian family gathers at a Chicago hospital after one of its elders has a stroke. Vartan Hagopian is a professor in his 70s who began his life in Armenia and now may end it in a hospital bed. A doctor tells the family that Vartan called out for a girl named Nadia during the attack that felled him. The name brings up painful memories for his slightly younger brother, Armen, who decides to tell the assembled family members the story of what he and his sibling lived through years ago. The sweeping tale begins in 1913 on the Hagopian family farm, located in the shadow of the Taurus Mountains along the Euphrates River. With the sultan of the Ottoman Empire deposed and the Young Turks in power, Armenians have been promised more equality under the law. Armen’s close-knit Armenian community lives alongside Turks and Kurds in relative peace. The future looks bright to teenage Armen and Vartan, who spend their evenings gazing at constellations. Slowly, though, it becomes clear that the government is overtaxing Armenians and brutally enforcing the practice with violence. Vartan and Armen’s father vows to stay, but as World War I breaks out, circumstances deteriorate, and Armen must find bravery far beyond his years. The most impressive aspect of Mekaelian’s historical tale is how it weaves together so many aspects of Armenian oppression into one family’s story without seeming implausible. The author carefully depicts Kharpert as a pastoral place that also becomes the setting of the worst things that humanity can offer, including forced assimilation, deportation, and outright slaughter. The sensible, memorable characters have an understandable dedication to their territory, and although the subject matter becomes quite bleak, the writing never does. The author shows Armen as a bright, humorous, hardworking teenager faced with unthinkable realities, and the wellsprings of courage that he draws from are seemingly limitless.
A tragic and beautiful story that manages to retain a wise and hopeful tone.Pub Date: April 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-38516-6
Page Count: 436
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
© 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.
