A shrewd and vibrant story of the resilience of ordinary people.
Diverse residents of a small industrial city seek happiness against the odds in a madcap novel about class and love.
Set in the last days of the 20th century in a crumbling, but still grittily colorful, industrial city in upstate New York, the story opens at “The End”—a scene of destruction that unravels in vignettes and still shots: a car upside down in a river; a diary floating away, its sentences dissolving in the water; a man with a gunshot wound flailing in the rapids. The narrative then rewinds to “The Beginning,” in a courtroom where 21-year-old Garnet Harlow, author of the aforementioned diary, is on trial for pushing an armoire over on her boyfriend, Ethan Thaxter, owner of the drowned car. Certain that the jury will take Ethan’s pattern of abusive behavior into account, Garnet is stunned to find herself convicted of assault and sentenced to two years in prison. Equally shocked are her mother, Carol, a cashier at the local community college cafeteria, and her best friend, Sam, a gay man navigating the dangers of toxic masculinity with matter-of-fact courage. Carol and Sam, both in their 40s, bolster each other against hopelessness in their furtive searches for romance. They both also offer Garnet what support they can as she finds herself facing bullying by fellow inmates and the continued manipulations of Ethan, whose wealthy background makes her a target in prison. Fraser’s narrative is written with notable humor and compassion, combining elements of screwball comedy with savvy class analysis. It’s clearly shown that the inequity between the wealthy and the working class is what lands Garnet behind bars; it’s a system in which “there’s only justice for the people who can pay for it.” The plot effectively shows the dangers caused by a lack of options for those who aren’t born to privilege. The work’s outlook is far from hopeless, however, and the indomitable central characters find that it’s their vulnerability, when shared, that gives them the strength they need to prevail.
A shrewd and vibrant story of the resilience of ordinary people.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-68433-814-6
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.
Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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