A lovely remembrance played in a minor key.
In this minimalist elegy, a man mourns the death of his family’s accidental matriarch.
Mrs. A. comes into the young couple’s life quite by accident—or perhaps by fate—when the unnamed narrator’s wife is placed on bed rest during her first pregnancy. Despite never having raised children herself, Mrs. A. quickly assumes command of the household, staying on to become their son’s nanny. So when she abruptly quits after more than eight years with the family, everyone is bewildered, and they're taken by surprise to learn months later that Mrs. A. is terminally ill. Without her gentle anecdotes about her late husband, Renato, and aptly chosen proverbs, the couple lacks a compass for marriage and child-rearing. They suspect that not only the order of their home, but also their relationships depended on Mrs. A. Often lyrical in its meditations, Giordano’s (The Human Body, 2014, etc.) latest novel at times risks lapsing into saccharine cliché: Mrs. A. is a force of nature steadying all of their lives, a lonely widow seeking a family to love, a miraculous finder of lost documents. Emotionally self-centered, unable to fully connect to others, the narrator and his wife call this seemingly magical woman “Mrs. A.” and “our Babette” (after the Karen Blixen novel) but never her given name. At its best, Giordano’s portrait of Mrs. A. lingers on the quirks that make her a lovable eccentric: her faith fractures as she begins to suspect God should be "ask[ing] her for forgiveness"; her trust in reason falters as she places her hopes in nebulously substantiated pseudo-scientific studies; her vanity thrills to a perfectly coiffed wig as she anticipates the effects of chemotherapy. And at his best, Giordano muses gorgeously on our inability to blend our life essences; even love leaves us lonely.
A lovely remembrance played in a minor key.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42876-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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