Engaging, inventive and full of feeling, Demarest’s debut engagingly addresses what we lose when we lose someone we love.
A debut novel that offers a heartfelt story of a father’s devotion.
Since the disappearance of his 5-year-old son a year ago, Ben Grant’s life has spun out of control. The despairing father separated from his wife, developed a drinking problem and now spends every moment of his free time looking for new leads in his son’s case. At the same time, he acclimates himself to a new job as property clerk at the Atlanta branch of the U.S. Postal Service’s Mail Recovery Center—formerly known as the Lost Letters Office. Although this symbolism may be a bit heavy-handed, Demarest develops the Mail Recovery Center into a vivid setting full of intriguing characters and details, including Uncle Shem, an urn of long-unclaimed human cremains; Jillian, a harmlessly disgruntled worker who considers Uncle Shem her greatest confidant; and the manically charming Sylvia, Ben’s assistant, friend and romantic interest. Although Sylvia has a difficult past of her own—and a habit of stealing items from the recovery center—she becomes Ben’s only support in his ongoing search for his son, which is reinvigorated by his new access to government databases. But even Sylvia’s kindness can’t keep Ben from being consumed by his obsession, and when he uncovers new information that might pertain to his son’s abduction, he only becomes more unhinged. Demarest writes of Ben’s plight with sensitivity and pathos (“He couldn’t tell anymore how much was the alcohol and how much was sleep deprivation and the numbness that had started to settle over his heart and head”), but she counterbalances the heaviness of the material with the zany staff and goings-on at the recovery center; she also loosely structures the tale around the chapters of the fictional Property Office Manual. This compelling, well-written story is ultimately one of recovery, as Ben tries to accept what he can’t control and get his life back on course.
Engaging, inventive and full of feeling, Demarest’s debut engagingly addresses what we lose when we lose someone we love.Pub Date: March 6, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2014
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
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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