A historical novel that’s more interested in famous names than emotional resonance.
In Myers’ (Paris 1935: Destiny’s Crossroads, 2011, etc.) latest novel, a veteran literary agent makes his way through the literary scene of interwar Paris.
Few places evoke nostalgia like the City of Light in the 1920s, and Myers doesn’t skimp on the literary and historical details in his latest novel: His protagonist, Bill Lawrence, an American war veteran turned literary agent, encounters a bevy of famous writers and artists, although Ernest Hemingway, who provides the novel with its guiding spirit, never makes an appearance. When Kurt Eckhart, an old friend of Bill’s from the war, gets in touch about a manuscript he’s writing about his postwar life in Berlin, Bill is immediately intrigued. He and his American expatriate friend, Kate Lundberg, help Kurt edit his book; Bill believes it will compete with the novel Hemingway is writing—which will eventually become A Farewell to Arms. Kurt’s novel-within-the-novel has essentially the same plot as that Hemingway masterpiece, and although the book emphasizes the superiority of Kurt’s vision, it inevitably suffers from the constant allusions to Hemingway’s oeuvre—it feels like a pale imitation of those classic works. Myers’ book, meanwhile, bears more than a passing resemblance to The Sun Also Rises. The author unfortunately assumes that readers will be ignorant of the history of the period; every historical figure is introduced with a short biography, and the last third of the book rejects dramatic action in favor of long scenes featuring characters rehashing well-known historical events. Readers with no knowledge of this material may find this aspect educational, but it may be frustrating for the better informed. Myers’ depiction of women is particularly disturbing; he seems fixated on lesbian sexuality, and yet his women seem inclined to fall for men. At one point, Djuna Barnes, the bisexual author of the 1936 novel Nightwood and a central character in this book, recovers from her difficult break with a female lover by becoming involved with Kurt. In a novel so concerned with the historical record, some readers may find this invention alarming.
A historical novel that’s more interested in famous names than emotional resonance.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1481100465
Page Count: 246
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fresh take on the WWII love story, with a narrator who practically demands Myrna Loy come back to life to play her in the...
To a portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, this historical novel adds two grand fictional passions: one beginning in Switzerland in 1900, the other in the Bahamas in 1941, both involving a ginger-haired Brit named Thorpe.
The first scene of Williams' (The Summer Wives, 2018, etc.) latest novel introduces the resourceful and wonderfully articulate Lulu Randolph Thorpe, "a pedigree twenty-five-year-old feline, blessed with sleek, dark pelt and composure in spades." A columnist for an American women's magazine stationed in the Bahamas in the early 1940s, Lulu reports on the doings of the former Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson—scrupulously avoiding all mention of the thicket of political corruption and racial tension that surrounds them. But to us, Lulu tells all, going back to how she dispensed with her first husband, the problematic Mr. Randolph, and continuing through her current mission—to spring her second husband, British undercover agent Benedict Thorpe, from a German prison camp. A second narrative set 40 years earlier focuses on Elfriede von Kleist, a new mother from rural Westphalia with postpartum depression so severe she has attempted suicide, causing her husband, the Baron, to dispatch her to a clinic in Switzerland. There she meets a young Londoner named Wilfred Thorpe, interrupting his grand tour of the continent to recover from pneumonia—but never to recover from meeting Elfriede. The portrait of wartime Bermuda and the awful Windsors, observed and reported by Lulu, is original and fascinating. Lulu herself is an excellent creation, tough, smart, sexy, and ruthless. While the secondary Elfriede plot adds interesting complications to the historical puzzle, it doesn't have quite as much verve.
A fresh take on the WWII love story, with a narrator who practically demands Myrna Loy come back to life to play her in the movie.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-283475-1
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
A complicated and intimate story of JFK’s secret life, best suited for American history buffs.
A fictionalized diary of Mary Pinchot Meyer, the woman rumored to have stolen the heart of John F. Kennedy during his presidency.
Born into a wealthy Pennsylvania family, Mary Pinchot first met JFK when she was a teenager in boarding school. Years later, after marrying CIA agent Cord Meyer, Mary settled in Georgetown, where she and her husband regularly attended parties alongside several political heavyweights. It was in Georgetown that Mary reconnected with then-senator Kennedy. Following her divorce from Cord a few years later, Mary is thought to have developed an intimate emotional and physical relationship with JFK, and the book imagines this relationship as it may have evolved after Kennedy became president of the United States. Wolfe (Postcards From Atlantic City, 2015, etc.) uses Mary’s fictional journal to portray this elusive woman as a politically informed, bohemian artist whose forward-thinking attitudes may have played a role in Kennedy's political decisions, especially during the Cuban missile crisis. The author’s Mary Pinchot Meyer is convinced that Kennedy loves her more deeply than he has any other woman, including his wife. The closer Mary becomes with the president, however, the more she fears for her own safety. The author deftly simulates a complicated woman’s diary, creating a document that feels entirely authentic—which includes assuming a certain level of knowledge on the reader’s part about the primary players in several federal agencies of the early 1960s. True to its nature as a diary, the prose is often choppy and desultory, which results in a narrative that is sometimes difficult to follow. Even so, the author includes interesting political and historical details in the entries, shedding light on a woman with a front seat to American history.
A complicated and intimate story of JFK’s secret life, best suited for American history buffs.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-291066-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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