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IN THE SHADOW OF THE SUN

An unfocused tale of Vietnam War–era family dysfunction that’s rich in historical realism.

Debut author Flores’ literary novel follows bizarre family troubles in a small Southern California town.

Welcome to Clarktown, California. Clarktown is located in Allen County, a place that “was created in the nineteenth century by the shear will, sweat and blood of the farmers, ranchers, and working families.” It is the 1960s, and the war in Vietnam is getting increasingly unpopular stateside. Veterans are returning from their time in combat in bad shape. Some are addicted to heroin, while others, like Matt Bradley, carry physical and emotional scars. Although Matt has managed to put his military training to use in civilian life advising police officers, his past still haunts him. Samuel Mendoza’s older brother Curtis “Curt” Mendoza served as a Green Beret. Once Curt is discharged from the Army, he winds up in all sorts of trouble, such as fighting and drug smuggling. Things go from bad to worse for Curt when he is accused of murder. It doesn’t help that local law enforcement is not exactly on the up and up. Sheriff Robert “Big Bob” Johnson seems keen on getting away with whatever might earn him a quick buck. His hobbies include quoting John Wayne movies and dealing in illicit human body parts. Big Bob believes Curt has information that could be useful, so he is hellbent on making Curt’s time behind bars as uncomfortable as possible. Lucky for Curt, his brother Hank is an Ivy League grad and lawyer who comes home from Boston to help with his case. Curt also has on his side local hippie attorney Robert “Bob” Stein. Bob and Hank may be sharp, but they have their work cut out for them.

Along with Curt’s legal situation, the narrative weaves in plenty of vivid period details of the 1960s. Baseball is well represented (snippets of Sandy Koufax’s career are mentioned throughout), as is the teen music scene: As one kid puts it, “I’m already tired of The Beatles…the Stones; that’s where it’s at, man.” Such aspects ground the story in a specific time and place, and the prose progresses in a breezy, conversational tone. The narrator explains complicated situations in a plain, matter-of-fact style: a good example is his description of his brother’s odd behavior upon his return from Vietnam (Curt seemed to be “nowhere and everywhere.”) The author also gives extensive background info on both major and minor characters. The reader learns everything from what car Stein drives to the special dish created in his honor at his landlord’s Mexican restaurant with kosher carne asida. The attorney describes “Combination Plate No. 7, The Stein Plate” as having “some heavy Old Testament vibe, and damn fucking good.” Such attention to detail enhances the main characters, although in the case of more peripheral characters, the detailed descriptions seem gratuitous. The question of whether Curt killed a man or not isn’t quite as suspenseful as one might expect. Despite such distractions, as the narrative centers on Curt’s trial it raises interesting questions about everything from pleas of insanity to the vagaries of small-town justice.

An unfocused tale of Vietnam War–era family dysfunction that’s rich in historical realism.

Pub Date: March 9, 2023

ISBN: 9798363956645

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: May 25, 2023

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE NIGHTINGALE

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

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