Reasonably well-written and plausible, with excellent period photographs as a bonus. Still, there’s so much good Civil War...
What if the Civil War had ended in the summer of 1863?
Those who suspect that former Speaker of the House Gingrich’s politics hinge on getting even for Appomattox may be surprised to read in the pages of this tome, the third volume in his conscripted Civil War trilogy (Gettysburg, 2003; Grant Comes East, 2004), that the North’s superiority lay in the unified power of the federal government: “That is the paradox and the curse of their system even more than ours, states’ rights,” says Union politico Elihu Washburne, though that may just be co-author Forstchen talking. The premise is this: on the third day of Gettysburg, Lee realizes that it would be a waste to send Pickett’s men against the well-protected foe, orders a wheeling action, and carries the day. As this installment picks up, the rebels threaten to torch Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania. The Yankees, spurred by U.S. Grant, are gathering strength; Sickles’s boys beat up on Pickett’s division, poor lads, but Sickles falls; and Lee’s forces turn to the foot of Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains to face down McPherson’s opposing army. In the ensuing bloodbath, George Custer is felled by an exploding railcar (“Damn rotten place to die, he thought. Out in the open, after a damn good charge. That’s how I wanted it, Custer’s Last Charge”), lots of Billy Yanks and Johnny Rebs die, and the contending armies drain each other’s veins. And yet, and yet, the North has reserves and industry, the South now nothing, and in August 1863, there at Monocracy Junction, Lee realizes that he has nothing left to fight with. With Grant’s generous surrender terms in hand—among them a promise that, with Southerners back in office, the unified federal government will resume come January 1864—Lee makes his way back to Richmond, and the U.S. lives happily ever after.
Reasonably well-written and plausible, with excellent period photographs as a bonus. Still, there’s so much good Civil War history to read that this what-if exercise seems more than a touch unnecessary.Pub Date: June 6, 2005
ISBN: 0-312-34298-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
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
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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