An engaging World War II novel featuring diverse prose styles about a man in search of spiritual peace and the granddaughter...
A woman leaves her dreary office life behind in search of her grandfather and his fortune.
This debut novel from veteran screenwriter Scheuring is an ambitious, sprawling literary project split between World War II and contemporary times. In the present day, Lily Allen, an overweight office drone with a penchant for Coors Light and Klondike bars, spends her days in quiet desperation, waiting for something to shake up her life. Bruce Sherwood, an heir finder, knocks on her door to do just that. She stands to inherit $16 million from her grandfather Gray Allen. The catch: Gray went missing in action during World War II, and she must track down his remains to prove he is dead in order to inherit. So Lily, with moral and financial support from Bruce, begins an adventure across the globe to find out what became of her grandfather. From the moment this mission begins, the tale becomes Gray’s story more than Lily’s. Scheuring initially leads the reader to think Gray is a violent, malevolent man during an extraordinary (indeed, almost impossible, historically speaking) journey through the Normandy invasion, the fall of Berlin, the Pacific theater, a Japanese internment camp, and the Nagasaki bombing. In a surprising turn, Lily discovers that her grandfather became some kind of quasi-Buddhist, living like a hermit in Malaysia. Gray’s saga is like a World War II fusion of Siddhartha and Apocalypse Now, with a protagonist hunting a character who found enlightenment in the darkness of war. Lily learns about Gray’s war experiences through a series of letters, interviews, and fortuitous finds. Scheuring uses each leg of Gray’s odyssey to dabble in different narrative styles: epistolary, extended monologue, stream of consciousness. The author writes in some styles better than others. Lily’s Joycean meandering would have benefitted from some extensive trimming. Scheuring’s prose about the war in the Pacific, however, is vibrant, if often digressive (“Strange thing it is to have hillsides fire at you. You return fire, but you feel like you’re fighting the earth itself”). The author displays an obvious knack for writing about battles, and the book should please military fiction fans.
An engaging World War II novel featuring diverse prose styles about a man in search of spiritual peace and the granddaughter who needs to find him.Pub Date: March 7, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 443
Publisher: One Light Road
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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