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Death Poem

A historical novel that fires off a few surprises.

In McClements’ debut novel, an elderly veteran of the first world war reveals a lifetime of secrets, pain, and regret.

In 1974, a well-dressed man in his late 70s named Sean Devaney is contemplating committing suicide. Patrick Brennan, a dissolute stranger looking to perform a good deed, stumbles upon Devaney and intervenes. Over a bottle of Irish whiskey, Brennan coaxes Devaney into discussing his life story and the cause of his anguish. Devaney begins with his childhood as a poor farm boy in upstate New York. Through a combination of hard work and a bequest from a local patroness, Devaney is able to attend Columbia University with the goal of becoming a journalist. Devaney finds a circle of school pals, and together, they have the time of their lives. Their undergraduate fun comes to an end when the United States enters World War I, and the friends all enter the Marine Corps. Following boot camp, they are sent to France, where they encounter the horrors of trench warfare. Devaney, wounded in battle, begins A Farewell to Arms–style romance with a nurse named Lynn. However, this novel is a bit more complex than the classic war story it initially seems to be. Devaney and his friends encounter heinous crimes committed under the cover of the chaos of war. In the postwar years, the four veterans act to rectify these injustices. The plot is full of unexpected twists—even if they occasionally come about thanks to a deus ex machina—with street fights and armed combat providing plenty of action. McClements’ strong knowledge of history adds verisimilitude to these scenes. While Devaney is a strong, pathos-filled character, many of the secondary characters are thinly drawn, particularly female characters, who say things like “you are no gentleman, but you are somewhat handsome and quite dashing” and usually do nothing but sit around waiting for men to bed them or save them from other, coarser men. Ultimately, though, Devaney’s twisting path and tortured soul will keep readers engaged to the end.

A historical novel that fires off a few surprises. 

Pub Date: July 20, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6826-6

Page Count: 412

Publisher: iUniverse

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2016

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THE NIGHTINGALE

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

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THE ALCHEMIST

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind. 

 The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. 

 Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

Pub Date: July 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-06-250217-4

Page Count: 192

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993

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