A meticulous unearthing of the painful contradictions in a privileged life.
A powerful man confronts his mortality.
Facing an unexpected diagnosis of terminal brain cancer, Spanish-born, Swiss-based private banker José María Álvarez must race against his dwindling time to settle the “unfinished business” of his thorny financial and personal lives. Born into the fifth generation of a family of bankers in Franco-era Spain, Álvarez has thrived for more than 75 years in a bubble of privilege whose native currencies are wealth and power, expertly honing his skills at deploying both, not least to satisfy his abundant material and emotional appetites. As he battles intense physical pain and lurches between moments of lucidity and vivid hallucinations that take him back to his teenage years—a time when family secrets and family tragedy merged to cast a shadow over the rest of his life—Álvarez also must face the equally shocking contemporary truths he’s concealed from his American wife, Lisa, who’s enjoyed the fruits of his business acumen without fully embracing the trappings of their rarified existence, and their three adult sons, returning from the United States to their parents’ elegant chalet to be present for their father’s final days. Álvarez’s passion for fly-fishing, borne at his domineering father’s side on the salmon-rich rivers of his native northern Spain, provides one of the novel’s dominant motifs as well as the occasion for some lush descriptive prose. Morais (Buddhaland Brooklyn, 2012, etc.) also skillfully draws on his background as a veteran Forbes and Barron’s financial journalist, most notably in the tension-filled account of a high-stakes negotiation that threatens the Álvarez family fortune after a much younger José must assume control upon his father’s premature death. Whether he’s untangling the strands of José’s dark inner world or offering a glimpse of a milieu where money serves as both lubricant and salve, Morais effectively reveals how heartbreakingly inadequate even vast resources can be in providing a bulwark against the assault of life’s most formidable challenges.
A meticulous unearthing of the painful contradictions in a privileged life.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-9382-8
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Little A
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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