Absolutely extraordinary. Readers who thought Doyle had outdone himself with the deftly juxtaposed comedy and drama in his...
The much-loved Irish author (The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, 1996, etc.) breaks impressive new ground with this masterly portrayal of the making of an IRA terrorist – the first volume of a projected trilogy entitled The Last Roundup.
In the vigorous colloquial voice that has become Doyle’s trademark, Henry Smart (b. 1901) narrates the fractious events of his 20 years, beginning with the unlikely courtship of his teenaged mother, (the ironically named) Melody Nash, by Henry’s father and namesake, a one-legged boozer who works as a bouncer (and hired killer) for Dublin madam Dolly Oblong and unseen criminal impresario Alfie Gandon. In a lustily detailed story of want and woe that easily outdistances Angela’s Ashes, Henry Sr. is betrayed to the police, Melody lapses into premature senility, and five-year-old Henry, accompanied by younger brother Victor, becomes a resourceful “street arab.” A handsome, strapping lad who learns quickly and adapts easily to violently shifting circumstances, Henry survives and, in a way, prospers – as a member of the ragtag “Irish Citizen Army” (during the vividly described Easter Monday 1916 cataclysm), a dockworker, the precocious lover of many women (including his teacher, later his wife, the fiery nationalist he will know only as “Miss O’Shea”), and IRA gunman and murderer and a trusted protégé of Michael Collins, and – in the stunning climactic pages – his father’s avenger. Throughout, Doyle manages the virtually impossible feat of mingling Ireland’s dark and bloody early modern history with his brilliantly imagined protagonist’s own amazing story: never for a moment do we feel we’re being given a history lesson, nor does Henry’s forthright amorality relax its firm hold on us.
Absolutely extraordinary. Readers who thought Doyle had outdone himself with the deftly juxtaposed comedy and drama in his recent fiction will be amazed and delighted all over again.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-670-88757-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1999
A mother and her child-prodigy daughter struggle to survive the Holocaust by telling stories and remembering the power of...
Rosner’s debut novel is a World War II story with a Room-like twist, one that also deftly examines the ways in which art and imagination can sustain us.
Five-year-old Shira is a prodigy. She hears entire musical passages in her head, which “take shape and pulse through her, quiet at first, then building in intensity and growing louder.” But making sounds is something Shira is not permitted to do. She and her mother, Róża, are Jews who are hiding in a barn in German-occupied Poland. Soldiers have shot Róża’s husband and dragged her parents away, and after a narrow escape, mother and daughter cower in a hayloft day and night, relying on the farmer and his wife to keep them safe from neighbors and passing patrols. The wife sneaks Shira outside for fresh air; the husband visits Róża late at night in the hayloft to exact his price. To keep Shira occupied and quiet the rest of the time, Róża spins tales of a little girl and a yellow bird in an enchanted but silent garden menaced by giants; only the bird is allowed to sing. But when Róża is offered a chance to hide Shira in an orphanage, she must weigh her daughter’s safety against her desire to keep the girl close. Rosner builds the tension as the novel progresses, wisely moving the action out of the barn before the premise grows tired or repetitive. This is a Holocaust novel, but it’s also an effective work of suspense, and Rosner’s understanding of how art plays a role in our lives, even at the worst of times, is impressive.
A mother and her child-prodigy daughter struggle to survive the Holocaust by telling stories and remembering the power of music.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-17977-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
As authoritative and compelling as Mary Renault’s renowned novels set in the ancient world. One hopes we may learn more...
The fourth century BCE comes eccentrically alive in this award-winning debut historical novel from a Canadian short story writer (The Best Thing for You, 2004, etc.).
Given the subtitle, it risks hubris from the outset, as the noted philosopher (who narrates) describes his journey from Athens (accompanied by his young wife Pythias and “apprentice” Callisthenes) to Macedon, at the imperious request of King Philip of Macedon. The two had been friends as boys, when Aristotle’s father was physician to Philip’s father the king, but have grown apart in every imaginable way. The philosopher’s beloved Athens is only a pale shadow of the glory that was Greece, and Philip’s royal city Pella is the base for an empire expanded by perpetual conquest. Aristotle has been enlisted to tutor Philip’s younger son Alexander, the quick-witted, energetic and temperamental heir to his father’s dream of unlimited aggrandizement. But before this impressively researched, vividly detailed novel settles into a contest of wits and wills between determined teacher and often unmanageable student, Lyon builds a fascinating portrait of the Athenian sage. While insisting that empirical evidence must be amassed and comprehended before theories can be formed, and preaching the need to find a middle ground (or “golden mean”) between any and all extremes, this Aristotle is revealed as a sensualist gratified and enthralled by the world’s often inexplicable plenitude, whether he’s interpreting tragic drama or examining feces or pondering the movements of celestial bodies; demonstrating his emphatically earthbound affection for the bewitching Pythias; or awakening the potential for rationality in Alexander’s seemingly retarded older brother Arrhidaeus (perhaps the novel’s most sympathetic character). In her most daring leap, Lyon examines with perfect tact and logic infrequently scrutinized evidence that suggests that this master of analysis and reason may have been clinically bipolar.
As authoritative and compelling as Mary Renault’s renowned novels set in the ancient world. One hopes we may learn more about Lyon’s immeasurably brilliant, unflappably human Aristotle.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-307-59399-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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