A gripping, ultimately uplifting story about the power of Christian forgiveness.
Pascuzzi offers a taut debut thriller that opens on a tense note of mystery.
Tony Turner and his wife, Emily, are on a well-deserved vacation in Italy when ominous messages start arriving from their home in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Tony is the levelheaded, responsible owner of a chain of Steve’s Sporting Goods stores in northern Ohio; one of his store managers is his younger brother Danny, who was a wayward ne’er-do-well while growing up in Tony’s shadow (“Danny was always finding one way or another to screw up his life, from bad financial decisions to marital problems to a less-than-exemplary work ethic”). But since Danny married Rachel and had two boys, he’s seemed more grounded. He leaves Tony a phone message, relating how he just had to fire a problematic employee and that he’s afraid that the man could be dangerous; in a later email message, a worried-sounding Danny gives Tony his life insurance information and asks Tony to take care of his sons. From these initial hints, and with steady, skillful control of his narrative, Pascuzzi effectively unfolds a tale of tragedy: Rachel and son Evan are found shot dead in their suburban home, and Danny is soon discovered dead of a self-administered gunshot wound in the ravine at a quarry. The author shows how the catastrophe rocks the surviving family members to their cores and also shakes the faith that Tony and his loved ones have always used to carry them through the rough parts of their lives. The question arises: “If God cares enough to help someone who’s grieving, why didn’t he stop Danny?” Tony and Emily have their nephew to care for, and they have questions nobody can answer, so Pascuzzi smoothly uses the bulk of the narrative to examine the consolations of religious belief in times of crisis (“Yes, we all experience darkness. But yet, we are given faith. We’re given hope”). Throughout the book, his characters are believably textured, and he dramatizes a trial of faith that feels refreshingly grounded in the real world.
A gripping, ultimately uplifting story about the power of Christian forgiveness.Pub Date: March 19, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-615-98299-1
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Hope Messenger, LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
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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