Like a drop of rain that holds the reflection of the world, crystalline and beautiful.
A fearful, tender, unexpectedly gifted boy in a Singapore fishing village finds that his fate is inextricably wound with that of his community.
"Decades later, the kampong would trace it all back to this very hour, waves draining the light from this slim, hungry moon." So begins Heng's second novel, a story scaffolded against a sweeping backdrop—the politics of colonialism, World War II in Southeast Asia, ecology, the inexorable forces of development and modernization—with very little of that ever mentioned, instead focusing on the experiences of the characters in language of perfect simplicity. It begins in 1941, when the territory of Singapore is “still governed by the Ang Mohs as it had been for the past century.” A small boy named Ah Boon goes out fishing with his Pa and somehow intuits the location of a mysterious island where the fish run denser than their nets can carry. This is the watershed hour referred to in the opening sentence, and its immediate effects are wholly positive. "While previously they’d subsisted on thin gruel with sweet potato, stringy bean sprouts, and the occasional scrawny chicken, now they feasted, day and night, on fish. They steamed them with ginger and freshly cut chilies; they chopped them up and sautéed the pieces with fragrant sambal, they fried them till the fins grew crispy, a delicious treat for the children." Meanwhile, Ah Boon has become close with his brilliant schoolmate Siok Mei, who was virtually orphaned when her parents left the country for political reasons but now shares with Ah Boon many idyllic days of childhood. The good times screech to a halt when war arrives and the Japanese occupation begins. After upheavals and tragedies, the story moves into the postwar period, when the Gah Men (as the people who run the country are known) begin a massive earth-moving project to reshape the coastline. Here Ah Boon's unique relationship to the landscape will again play a critical role even as he dons the white shirt and white pants and round, wire-rimmed glasses of a Gah Man. Heng's development of this character is absolutely brilliant and deserves wide notice.
Like a drop of rain that holds the reflection of the world, crystalline and beautiful.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780593420119
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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