An observant debut novel in which the characters’ selflessness shines through the haze.
Debut novelist and veteran journalist Delaney offers a thriller set in a modern China that, in the mid-2000s, hasn’t become the open society that many have hoped for.
It’s the beginning of the new millennium, and the Chinese government is feverishly working to change the cityscape of Beijing in time for the 2008 Olympics—and trying to make people forget things like the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Journalist Jake Bradley’s friend Qiang left a good job in California’s Silicon Valley to come back to his native land and make a documentary about its rapid changes. This draws the attention of the government’s Public Security Bureau, and Qiang goes missing; Jake, who’s in love with Qiang, vows to find and rescue him. In his quest, he has the help of Qiang’s sister, Diane, and Qiang’s ex-husband, Ben. If they can blow the lid off a massive bribery scandal involving the Olympics, they’ll have enough leverage to get Qiang freed. At the same time, Delaney tells the story of Dawei, a hapless young man from the Chinese provinces who also gets mixed up in the main plot. Delaney has been covering China since the mid-1990s for such outlets as Dow Jones Newswires, Bloomberg News, and the South China Morning Post (where he’s currently the U.S. bureau chief), and he’s clearly the right person to tell this story—a trustworthy guide and a fine example of “write what you know.” He ably tells a tale of a China in the midst of transformation, as in a poignant vignette in which a starving Dawei stands transfixed outside a Häagen-Dazs ice-cream parlor, trying to make sense of it all. The author also shows how urban renewal also means urban upheaval, using choking dust and smog as a visible metaphor throughout the narrative. The book offers a thoughtful love story, as well; Ben is willing to take risks to free a man who divorced him, and Jake takes those same risks, not knowing if Qiang will ever reciprocate his love.
An observant debut novel in which the characters’ selflessness shines through the haze.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77161-327-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Mosaic Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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