Meticulous and candid, this slow-moving volume about small-town life should attract aficionados of American history.
An isolated farm boy discovers the wonderful—and war-torn—world outside his fence.
In this debut autobiographical novel from psychologist and memoirist Cromwell (A Time in China, 2014, etc.), Hanno Buchwald—the author’s fictional counterpart—experiences the aches and joys of a distinctly Midwestern coming-of-age. Arranged out of temporal order, the book’s 30 chapters bob and dive between Hanno’s birth in Linton, Indiana, in 1928 and an early adulthood marked by the anxieties of a nation in crisis. Opening with Hanno’s first memory—a peaceful, primordial recollection of a field of blue—the text soon traces the definite arc of a human life. Seemingly nothing is left out of this chronicle of Hanno’s upbringing. Included are events of traditional significance, like the uncomfortable funeral of his grandfather, as well as incidents that are refreshingly unusual (Hanno, with his parents’ guidance, learns male anatomical terms). In Linton, where residents embrace the chores of country homesteading and the mores of Christian small-town life, Hanno finds himself not only toiling at farmwork like milking and butchering, but also caring for his Alzheimer’s-stricken grandfather, who often wanders in search of “home.” Love and sexuality are frequent themes, from the genital exploration Hanno partakes in with his childhood friend Jenny Lee in the grape arbor to the romantic pursuit of Hanno and his friend by a burly but gentle soldier who arrives in Linton as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to drum up support for war bonds. Though chock-full of intimate memories and highly specific, sometimes odd, details—like the first time Hanno sees a public latrine—the book reaches its apotheosis in its striking portrait of the Pearl Harbor attack and its effect on Linton. One of Hanno’s elder twin brothers, Jay, perishes in the battle. The third-person narration, endearing and unpretentious, unspools like a fireside tale. But the emphasis on matter-of-factness over dramatic rhetoric eventually becomes a drawback, as does the account’s sluggish pace. While the book’s overarching purpose is difficult to discern, the reader should nevertheless enjoy the precision and insight that pervade the story as well as the historical details.
Meticulous and candid, this slow-moving volume about small-town life should attract aficionados of American history.Pub Date: July 31, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4917-7101-3
Page Count: 374
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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