A gripping and emotionally affecting political tale.
In this novel, capricious violence consumes a Yemeni city after the British abandon it, leaving an Indian family terrifyingly vulnerable.
Dara and Silloo Barucha live an “idyllic” life in Aden, Yemen, a vibrantly cosmopolitan city they consider their “paradise.” A successful port city through most of the 1950s and ’60s, Aden has become a bustling hub of commercial and cultural activity. But in response to the increasingly violent agitation among insurgents, the British forces abruptly withdraw from Aden in 1967, leaving the city to its own devices. In the absence of the British constabulary presence, the government is seized by strident Communists who menace the city’s business owners, especially those who immigrated from abroad. At first, Dara believes the pains of governmental transition will subside—he makes his peace with the seizure of his family’s restaurant. But then he is arrested on trumped-up charges of smuggling; his large store is seized; and Silloo is placed under house arrest. She is regularly threatened by thugs who loot her house, menace her and her children with violence, and intimidate her with the prospect of rape, a harrowing predicament captured with electrifying power by Trabulsi. With her husband in prison, Silloo realizes it is up to her to steward her family to safety. This is a heartbreaking tale of a happy family enveloped in tumultuous political currents completely beyond its control. In addition, it is deeply disturbing to read about an extraordinary and prosperous city reduced to a struggling backwater: “The country’s rich history—bejeweled with an array of cultures, religions, and indoctrinations—seeded the Yemeni soil.” The author’s command of Aden’s history as well as the region at large is remarkable, and she seamlessly weaves the political predicament into the personal story of the Barucha family. Trabulsi has composed a moving drama that illustrates the troubles of a city and nation in the microcosmic struggles of a family.
A gripping and emotionally affecting political tale.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781645384526
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Ten16 Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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