An imaginative but unevenly executed homage to The Pilgrim’s Progress.
Jack’s debut novel tells the story of a girl traveling across North America in the midst of a crisis of faith.
Carrie Marie has had a tough go of it. Her mother died the summer before she started high school, and she bitterly blamed God for the loss and turned her back on her faith, despite her kindly Aunt Maggie’s attempts at reassurance. In high school, Carrie began dating the alienated Dustin, but now, in college, he’s become increasingly abusive. As finals approach, Carrie is having nightmares about being murdered at a highway crossroads—possibly by Dustin. She decides that she must finally put a long-held plan into action: “As it happens, Carrie Marie drives from Jacksonville to Los Angeles, becomes a high-profile lawyer, and gets rich, famous, happy, loved, and secure,” Carrie imagines. “As it happens, it only takes three days.” Getting from Florida to California so quickly with no plan is quite a task, especially for someone who lacks faith. However, it turns out that she’s about to embark on her own version of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress—a 17th-century work that documented one man’s allegorical journey to the “Celestial City.” Her own journey, fraught with obstacles and setbacks, will forever shift her beliefs—for better or worse. Jack does a remarkable job of turning the familiar landscape of the United States into a spiritual realm where an extended allegory can convincingly play out. The people that Carrie meets frequently relate biblical parables; at one point, she meets a man named Mr. Job who tells her about his life of suitably Job-like trials. The author doesn’t have a very smooth prose style, though, and some moments come across as silly: “Carrie had moved to gothic punk and rebellious….Carrie looked frightening when you added her I-don’t-give-a-hoot attitude to her dark looks.” The plot isn’t terribly believable, either, with its unlikely coincidences and character names—but because this is an allegory, readers may forgive these elements. Christian readers will most likely appreciate Jack’s morality tale, but the more secularly inclined should probably continue on their own journey.
An imaginative but unevenly executed homage to The Pilgrim’s Progress.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5127-9437-3
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 4, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.
A Christian woman and a Jewish man fall in love in medieval France.
In 1088, a Christian girl of Norman descent falls in love with the son of a rabbi. They run away together, to disastrous effect: Her father sends knights after them, and though they flee to a small southern village where they spend a few happy years, their budding family is soon decimated by a violent wave of First Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem. The girl, whose name becomes Hamoutal when she converts to Judaism, winds up roaming the world. Hertmans’ (War and Turpentine, 2016, etc.) latest novel is based on a true story: The Cairo Genizah, a trove of medieval manuscripts preserved in an Egyptian synagogue, contained an account of Hamoutal’s plight. Hamoutal makes up about half of Hertmans’ novel; the other half is consumed by Hertmans’ own interest in her story. Whenever he can, he follows her journey: from Rouen, where she grew up, to Monieux, where she and David Todros—her Jewish husband—made a brief life for themselves, and all the way to Cairo, and back. “Knowing her life story and its tragic end,” Hertmans writes, “I wish I could warn her of what lies ahead.” The book has a quiet intimacy to it, and in his descriptions of landscape and travel, Hertmans’ prose is frequently lovely. In Narbonne, where David’s family lived, Hertmans describes “the cool of the paving stones in the late morning, the sound of doves’ wings flapping in the immaculate air.” But despite the drama of Hamoutal’s story, there is a static quality to the book, particularly in the sections where Hertmans describes his own travels. It’s an odd contradiction: Hertmans himself moves quickly through the world, but his book doesn’t quite move quickly enough.
Constructed with delicacy, lyricism, and care, Hertmans’ novel still feels occasionally static.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4708-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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