Kanner successfully undertakes a formidable task retelling a familiar religious story through the eyes of Noah’s wife. The...
Noah and his wife take on a boatload of animals and family members—and the close quarters lead to situations that would try the patience of Job…but that’s another story.
Kanner’s debut novel is based on the Old Testament story of Noah’s wife, an unnamed woman who’s been shunned since birth for the mark of a demon, a raspberry birthmark, she bears on her forehead. Her mother is long gone, but her father does his best to shield her from harm and arranges for his 19-year-old daughter to marry Noah, a taciturn man dedicated to preaching about the God of Adam. He takes his wife to Sorum, the town of exiles, where prostitutes, murderers and others sinners run rampant. Old Noah’s sight and hearing aren’t what they used to be, but he’s surprisingly frisky for a more than 600-year-old man. He sires three sons: Shem, who often clings to his mother; Japheth, who prefers fighting to settle scores; and Ham, the funny son with the sharp wit whom his mother favors. Noah’s wife also develops a fondness for Herai, a young girl with mental limitations. She tries to convince Noah that Herai will be a good match for one of their sons, but Noah, fearing that his grandchildren will be similarly afflicted, refuses to permit the marriage. When Noah claims that God is sending a flood to destroy mankind and has chosen his family to build an ark, ride out the storm while tending to the animals they are tasked with saving, and repopulate the Earth once the floodwaters have receded, he’s the subject of ridicule in the community. But the family does as Noah instructs, and as the rains begin, they embark on their voyage. Sibling rivalries become more pronounced aboard the vessel now that each brother has a wife (Ona, Herai and Zilpha), and their mother proves her strength and character as she tries to protect her family from each and from the outside forces that threaten.
Kanner successfully undertakes a formidable task retelling a familiar religious story through the eyes of Noah’s wife. The narrative’s well-articulated, evenly balanced and stimulating—but it’s definitely not the familiar tale that’s so frequently illustrated in children’s books.Pub Date: April 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-9523-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Howard Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2013
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
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
