A sometimes-unfocused but emotionally resonant novel.
An anonymous, dying poet unmasks himself to neighbors and family members in Schell’s (Woody, 2016, etc.) conclusion to the three-novel Folksong Suite.
Irene Louise McIntyre Nelley, known as Rainey, is a housewife living with her sassy Irish mother, her two precocious children, and her caring trucker husband in her beloved hometown of Stonyville, West Virginia, in the year 2000. She struggles to feel fulfilled while writing short stories and sporadically attempting to publish them. Her life changes forever, though, when her quiet, next-door neighbor, the elderly Cutch Anson Voltz, tells her a secret: he’s the revered, pseudonymous regional poet known as “Cabbage Smith.” Cutch, dying of cancer, asks her to read his poems at his eventual funeral. An awed Rainey agrees to share her own stories with him, and a careful description of her grandmother’s farm leads to an even bigger revelation: Cutch is, in fact, her mother’s long-lost brother. He quickly becomes an integral element of Rainey’s family, and numerous flashbacks demonstrate how he positively affected Rainey’s life in the past by encouraging her daughter to play music, for example, or by supporting Rainey’s brief attempt to run a natural-foods store. As Cutch’s death grows closer, the circle of people who know his secret grows wider and wider: first Rainey’s mother, then Cutch’s eccentric but brilliant barber, and finally the entire town. Schell gives his characters verbose, sometimes-poetic dialogue and finds striking images in Rainey’s everyday life (as when the family’s pet duck, mourning his deceased mate, finds solace by embracing his own reflection in a window). The plot can feel scattered as the flashbacks move the narrative back and forth in time; some elements also lack clear meaning, such as Rainey’s aforementioned store, whose true significance to her remains vague. Still, Rainey’s first-person voice is undeniably compelling throughout. The book’s last 70-plus pages consist of Uncle Cutch’s final work, the poetry collection Cross Street. Its verses are tedious when they descend into abstract wordiness but quite enjoyable when they embrace vivid imagery, as when one describes pansies as “Dark-eyed innocence shrouded in yellow; / dainty white noses with feline whisker.”
A sometimes-unfocused but emotionally resonant novel.Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5412-1308-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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