Every tragedy is inevitable in Novack’s precise, often beautiful debut.
In this debut novel from three-time Pushcart Prize nominee Novack, a ten-year-old girl’s disappearance and a mother’s abandonment slowly shred the fabric of life in a small Pennsylvania town.
Life for nine-year-old Sissy and her big sister Eva appears normal. The ’70s are progressing, and both girls are growing up. For Sissy, that means learning to differentiate between the stories her mother told and reality, and sometimes even minding her sister. For 17-year-old Eva, the passage of time means a progression from fast sex with the eager, fickle boys of her high school to a full-blown affair with a married teacher. Both are reeling from recent tragedies; the disappearance and assumed abduction of Sissy’s best friend-turned-enemy Vicki and also the departure of their beautiful, troubled mother, Natalia. What they can’t know is that these events spring from deeper grief: Vicki’s father was a troubled Vietnam veteran, a suicide who left her mother alone with the bottle. Natalia, meanwhile, is a Holocaust survivor, the only member of her family to make it out, thanks to the cold kindness of a German family who wanted a child: “I don’t mind that you’re a Gyp,” her new mother had told her. “I always wanted a little girl.” For all the supposed normalcy of their little town, the repercussions of grief and loss are everywhere. In the hands of Novack, these echoes are as inexorable as tides, and they permeate this book with a deep sadness. Although the pacing is slow, the characters come alive in the details. Sissy’s fantasies, alternating between rescue and revenge, and Eva’s dreams of love and escape are revealed in a naturalistic progression. Even the inarticulate Frank, Natalia’s abandoned husband, has his moment of clarity: “At least metal doesn’t shrink away from you.”
Every tragedy is inevitable in Novack’s precise, often beautiful debut.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6680-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
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
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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