This book’s portrayal of childhood exuberance and petulance, vivid characters, and Eddie’s ephemeral sense of melancholy...
Young Eddie Steinberg, growing up in 1950s Corvallis, Oregon, visits his maternal grandparents in Los Angeles in this child’s-eye view of the world of adults.
Malamud’s (Old Poems, New Translations: Two Books of Verse, 2013) novel focuses on Eddie’s California visit to his beloved “Granny.” It’s an evocative portrayal of a young boy passionately entranced by sunny California and on the brink of comprehending the complexities of human interactions. The author’s chapterlong depiction of the three-day journey by train from Corvallis to Los Angeles captures young Eddie’s visceral sense of excitement and wonder as he’s lulled by the sound of the wheels on the tracks, the swaying of the cars, and the scenery rushing past his window. Eddie’s world exists in the moment, and the book is filled with meticulously written observations of details of ordinary life, allowing Malamud to turn a simple gas-station stop into an anecdote-worthy event: “He got back in the car. His grandfather got in. The drama of turning the key in the lock, the motor purring to life, the slow slide out of the gas station, with the smooth Buick full of luxurious gas.” Sometimes, the moments are filled with the magic of imaginative flights of fantasy, especially when Eddie is denied something he really wants: “He’d have a swimming pool, and fill it with ice cream and chocolate sauce. And everyone in the world would admire him for doing it.” The bulk of the novel takes place during the family’s 1958 excursion, during which Eddie spends three weeks alone with his grandparents. Two more annual summer visits follow, and each time Granny and Gramps, a voice instructor, rent a different house furnished with a different piano. The story then surges a bit jarringly forward, with the family moving East as Eddie’s father becomes a successful writer—think Bernard Malamud, the author’s late father—in a short catch-up that brings Eddie into his late 20s.
This book’s portrayal of childhood exuberance and petulance, vivid characters, and Eddie’s ephemeral sense of melancholy should keep readers hooked until the end.Pub Date: May 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5307-1042-3
Page Count: 204
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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