From the late Scottish author Gunn (d. 1973), another novel set in the chillingly pristine and seacoast landscapes (Young Art and Old Hector, 1991, etc.). Here, a young boy of 12 in a poor fishing village survives family crises and his own emotive tides and turns: a father at the mercy of a storm at sea; the departure of an older brother; a mother's near-fatal illness—and, of course, a nagging awareness of sexual attraction. Again, Gunn writes with a scowling intensity when he strains at a visual prize (``she could feel the angles of the old drystone dykes of the north in her own joints...''), and he goes after the most elusive of sensual bangs (``an oily brown taste'' is the mix of tea and meat). But when the author takes on the terror and majesty of a stormy sea, his statuesque, somewhat idealized people and their domestic concerns are an appropriate complementary landscape. The village watches in awe and fear as at last the boats come in, then as a wave lifts boat and men to thunder on the break and recede: ``White-flecked, like a great skin, the whole body of water could be seen swaying out to sea.'' Strong stuff, Men of Arran fashion, but affecting also is Gunn's reading of the changing moods in one family as an 18-year-old brother leaves for Australia: the close last dinner, the night's wild fling with piper and poaching, the breakfast (``already part of the journey''), the public goodbye, and the final, private griefs. Then there's the agony of the mother's illness (including ponderous metaphysical speculation) and some peeks (from a tree) at innocent love-play. The shuttered passions of an adolescent, in a stoic, loyal, closemouthed community, point to the possibilities of adulthood: ``All at once he started running...his bare legs twinkling across the field of the dawn.'' Purple—yes, a shade, but Gunn's sea is a deep blue, then furious white and mighty and real.
Pub Date: Feb. 17, 1993
ISBN: 0-8027-1228-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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