The balance is off here, Wallace’s comic gifts wasted. What felt frothy and fun in the first books turn leaden when a...
In this sequel to Eighteen Acres (2010) and It’s Classified (2011), her political romps about America’s fictional first woman president, political insider and The View co-host Wallace goes darker but not deeper, centering her story on the White House reaction to a major terrorist attack on American soil.
The novel opens shortly after bombs have been detonated in five American cities, including Washington D.C., causing an unknown but probably high number of casualties. Moderate Republican Charlotte Kramer faces this crisis well into her second term as the country’s 45th president. She and husband Peter have reconciled. She has even hired his former mistress, Dale, as her press secretary. Charlotte’s former chief of staff, Melanie, is now secretary of defense; she's on a visit to still–war-torn Iraq. Once the bombings are confirmed, meetings follow press statements that follow meetings on how to handle the press and how to address the public. There are arguments by Melanie (seemingly as a stand-in for the author) for military readiness, revenge, and "enhanced interrogation," as well as a behind-the-scenes look at internal White House politics, all clearly drawn from the author’s experience as communications director for President George W. Bush. Meanwhile, despite the crisis, Charlotte, Dale, and Melanie each deal with their own personal issues. Charlotte obsesses about the flaws in her marriage. Secretly 20 weeks pregnant, Melanie wonders how she’ll balance motherhood with her career and worries about being cut from Charlotte’s inner circle. Dale is in a new relationship with Melanie’s close friend Warren, a saintly war veteran now serving as a political consultant to Charlotte, but she worries that he's more committed than she is, partly because she’s not completely over Peter; word of the bombings interrupts their attempt to rendezvous.
The balance is off here, Wallace’s comic gifts wasted. What felt frothy and fun in the first books turn leaden when a national tragedy is less important than who slept with or back-stabbed whom.Pub Date: April 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5689-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...
Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.
By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04734-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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