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SOME HELL

Name: SOME HELL
Author: Patrick Nathan
ISBN: 978-1-55597-798-6

by Patrick Nathan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 20, 2018

A magnetic first novel combining wit, sex, and apocalyptic reverie.

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A gripping account of the intricately woven mind of a teenager.

In small-town Minnesota, Colin is not much more than a troubled preteen with an older sister, Heather, who resents him (and everything else), an older brother, Paul, who has autism, parents who grow increasingly distant as time passes, friends he can’t rely on, and a budding, unruly sexuality. When his father commits suicide, Colin is forced to pick up the pieces of his broken family while contemplating both his own death and homosexuality. “It was impossible for a boy to just grow into a new face, a new body and skin….In the world he imagined, boys stepped out of their old skin and that was the end.” If only it were as easy as shedding an old skin for a new one. Simultaneously, Colin's mother, Diane, faces similar issues—though on an adult scale. She begins therapy sessions to deal with grief, picks up unhealthy habits, and gets significantly closer to Colin, neglecting her other two children. Colin and Diane quickly form a redoubtable duo—though much of their development happens when they are separated—that turns its back on societal expectations. For Diane, Colin is her peer—and vice versa. The result is intoxicating. Nathan has crafted an all-consuming novel in which topics like suicide, homosexuality, parenting, friendship, and psychology make up a precarious tableau in which readers can leave their own subjectivity behind and experience the world from Colin’s singular viewpoint. “Nobody caught the names he called himself. Nobody saw him put his hands together and nobody knew what god he prayed to, what promises he made. Nobody saw him unfold his hands and look at his wrists where the blood flowed fragile and breathless and blue….Nobody knew was he was thinking.”

A magnetic first novel combining wit, sex, and apocalyptic reverie.

Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-55597-798-6

Page Count: 296

Publisher: Graywolf

Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FUTURE WAS COLOR
by Patrick Nathan

- BOOK REVIEW
IMAGE CONTROL
by Patrick Nathan

- PROFILES
Patrick Nathan

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.