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
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
"This soil," concludes the young narrator of this quiet chronicle of garrotted innocence, "is bad for all kinds of flowers. Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear." And among the exclusions of white rural Ohio, echoed by black respectability, is ugly, black, loveless, twelve-year-old Pecola. But in a world where blue-eyed gifts are clucked over and admired, and the Pecolas are simply not seen, there is always the possibility of the dream and wish—for blue eyes. Born of a mother who adjusted her life to the clarity and serenity of white households and "acquired virtues that were easy to maintain" and a father, Cholly, stunted by early rejections and humiliations, Pecola just might have been loved—for in raping his daughter Cholly did at least touch her. But "Love is never better than the lover," and with the death of her baby, the child herself, accepting absolutely the gift of blue eyes from a faith healer (whose perverse interest in little girls does not preclude understanding), inches over into madness. A skillful understated tribute to the fall of a sparrow for whose small tragedy there was no watching eye.
Pub Date: Oct. 29, 1970
ISBN: 0375411550
Page Count: -
Publisher: Holt Rinehart & Winston
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1970
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 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.
