A splendid, leisurely meditation on the meaning of fame, identity, and love that reaches real depths of thought and feeling...
A haunting tale of obsessive love and buried secrets that won’t stay buried, recounted by Labiner (Our Sometime Sister, 1998) in a hyperliterary tone that recalls the best of Borges or Cyril Connolly.
This is one of those stories in which much of the reader’s pleasure comes from watching the author have such a good time telling the tale. Our narrator is a highly introspective young American, Fern Jacobi, who has finished college and landed in Ireland at the end of an extended tour of Europe. Short on plans and cash alike, she accepts a job as housekeeper for Owen and Brigid Lieb, a literary couple who have just returned after 20 years’ absence to their home outside Galway. For the precociously intellectual Fern, the job is a stroke of luck, since Owen is a well-known writer who is also famous as the widowed husband of Franny Lieb. Franny (obviously modeled on Sylvia Plath) published only one book (a novel called The Bright Corner) during her lifetime, but she has had a cult following ever since her suicide in 1963. Owen’s second wife is now writing her first book, a biography of Marcel Proust (whom she claims was her grandfather), and she soon comes to rely on the younger but more self-assured Fern’s advice as she begins her literary career. Soon Fern becomes fascinated by the figure of the dead Franny, and, when she discovers a cache of Franny’s unpublished letters, she begins to look more closely into the circumstances of her suicide (or was it murder?) and her unhappy marriage to the enigmatic and morbid Owen. She’ll be led to a number of rather stunning discoveries—about herself and the Liebs—that make her feel (literally) like a new woman.
A splendid, leisurely meditation on the meaning of fame, identity, and love that reaches real depths of thought and feeling without seeming forced or pompous.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-56689-136-1
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
