An often illuminating novel that lays bare the societal constraints faced by generations of women and the stark realities...
Wright (Broken Strings, 2013, etc.) crafts a multigenerational tale centered on the women in one Scottish-American family.
As the novel opens in 1912, Jessie Menzies has just graduated from high school in the small Scottish town of Leven. The festivities are short-lived, however, as she learns that her Aunt Grace has died in the United States, leaving behind a husband and children. In short order, Jessie travels there to help with the kids—a job that has her putting down roots in the Vermont town of Cherry Valley. Jessie starts teaching English to new immigrants and eventually forges a relationship with a Polish man, leading to a daughter, Grace, being born out of wedlock. The story is divided into four parts, and the first two trace Jessie’s story as she builds a life in the small town with assorted, lively friends and family. Victoria, one of the “babies” Jessie came to look after, narrates the third part, set mostly during World War II. Tired of life in small-town America, Vicky has an affair with a married college professor and becomes a pilot to help the war effort in Europe. The story of Grace, Jessie’s love child, makes up the last part of the novel. Allusions to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland surface throughout; Vicky, for example, with her sheer will and zest for life, is depicted as the story’s “Red Queen.” But while Lewis Carroll might have stated in that tale that “Queens never make bargains,” the author effectively shows how the Menzies women have no such luck. Constrained by the demands of family, time and place, even the one weapon they have—sexuality—often backfires. Yet Wright shows how they constantly adapt to unyielding situations and somehow manage to make their places in society. The novel ends just after the end of World War II, a celebratory time that made way for new beginnings; the story concludes with this ray of hope as the next generation gets ready to take over the spotlight.
An often illuminating novel that lays bare the societal constraints faced by generations of women and the stark realities they bore with grace.Pub Date: April 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1935922476
Page Count: 234
Publisher: Red Barn Books of Vermont
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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