A powerful novel about lifelong female friendships against a backdrop of political upheaval and family secrets.
In 1940s Port-au-Prince, two girls from different economic classes strike up a friendship—until a secret separates them.
In her last novel, What Storm, What Thunder (2021), Chancy used a large cast of characters to examine the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which killed hundreds of thousands and left more than a million people homeless. In her moving second novel, the Haitian Canadian American writer probes Haiti’s history and culture through a narrower lens. Sisi and Gertie become friends quickly, despite the differences in their circumstances. Sisi exists in a small, warm world of women—her mother, sister, and grandmother—who work hard for what little they have, while Gertie is part of a large, wealthy clan, with haughty older siblings, an often-absent father, and a society-obsessed mother who frets over the darkness of Gertie’s skin. Sisi and Gertie navigate these divides until a tragedy reveals family secrets that drive them apart. Chancy follows their paths as they grow up and eventually flee an increasingly unrecognizable and dangerous Haiti. The author touches on Haiti’s collapsing political system and the violence and horror that follow with a palpable sense of sorrow. But though she shines a light on colorism, racism, and abuses of power, this remains primarily a personal story, with beautifully fleshed out characters and a bone-deep understanding of the inexorable pull of the past and how regret can all too easily overwhelm our lives. As adults, Sisi and Gertie wonder if they can renew their ties, now with husbands, children, and everyday obstacles in the mix. Doing so will be a challenge, but Chancy holds out the possibility of hope: Some bonds simply can’t be broken, she writes, if only we are willing to nurture them.
A powerful novel about lifelong female friendships against a backdrop of political upheaval and family secrets.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781959030379
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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