Thoughtful, beautifully written, and wonderfully tender toward its appealing characters: another impressive achievement for...
The author of The Journal of Mrs. Pepys (1999) again offers a vividly wrought fictional memoir by the unsung amanuensis of a real-life figure.
François Burnens goes to work in the summer of 1785 for M. François Huber, a gentleman living outside Geneva. Monsieur, as Burnens refers to him, has been blind since he was 19; he hires François to assist him in his study of bees, as well as such mundane tasks as shaving. Spanning ten years, Burnens’s leisurely first-person narrative reveals its author as an intelligent, observant youth and his employer as a warmhearted, reflective man who has forged the agony of affliction into hard-won serenity. We see through Burnens’s eyes that the Hubers’ profoundly loving marriage has its frustrations for the blind man’s wife; occasional lapses when the manservant forgets himself and refers to Madame as Marie-Aimée reveal an increasingly insistent attraction between them. There’s no melodrama, however, only the delicately described relations of decent people striving for fulfillment within the bounds of duty and honor. The Hubers’ other servants and their son Pierre are as fully imagined as the three principals, and the two men’s work with bees is as fascinating as the household interactions. George subtly uses their scientific efforts to show Monsieur imparting life lessons about patience and meticulousness to the young manservant, promoted to secretary after his careful reflections prove as invaluable as his eyes. “God bless your vision, Burnens,” Monsieur exclaims when they make a crucial discovery about how the queen bee mates. “Mine is only the sight, sir,” he replies, “yours is the vision.” Yet over the years Burnens’s sentiments of affection and obligation are challenged by a growing desire to find work, a wife, and a home of his own. The time comes for him to leave, with Monsieur’s gracious yet sorrowful blessing. It’s a mark of how sensitively George has shaped her tale that this inevitable denouement leaves us both saddened and exultant.
Thoughtful, beautifully written, and wonderfully tender toward its appealing characters: another impressive achievement for George.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-7472-7041-4
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Headline
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the “It”...
Queen of the summer novel—how could she not be, with all her stories set on an island—Hilderbrand delivers a beguiling ninth (The Castaways, 2009, etc.), featuring romance and mystery on isolated Tuckernuck Island.
The Tate family has had a house on Tuckernuck (just off the coast of swanky Nantucket) for generations. It has been empty for years, but now Birdie wants to spend a quiet mother-daughter week there with Chess before Chess’s wedding to Michael Morgan. Then the unthinkable happens—perfect Chess (beautiful, rich, well-bred food editor of Glamorous Home) dumps the equally perfect Michael. She quits her job, leaves her New York apartment for Birdie’s home in New Canaan, and all without explanation. Then the unraveling continues: Michael dies in a rock-climbing accident, leaving Chess not quite a widow, but devastated, guilty, unreachable in the shell of herself. Birdie invites her younger daughter Tate (a pretty, naïve computer genius) and her own bohemian sister India, whose husband, world-renowned sculptor Bill Bishop, killed himself years ago, to Tuckernuck for the month of July, in the hopes that the three of them can break through to Chess. Hunky Barrett Lee is their caretaker, coming from Nantucket twice a day to bring groceries and take away laundry (idyllic Tuckernuck is remote—no phone, no hot water, no ferry) as he’s also inspiring renewed lust in Tate, who has had a crush on him since she was a kid. The author jumps between the four women—Tate and her blossoming relationship with Barrett, India and her relationship with Lula Simpson, a painter at the Academy where India is a curator, Birdie, who is surprised by the recent kindnesses of ex-husband Grant, and finally Chess, who in her journal is uncoiling the sordid, sad circumstances of her break with normal life and Michael’s death.
Hilderbrand’s portrait of the upper-crust Tate clan through the years is so deliciously addictive that it will be the “It” beach book of the summer.Pub Date: July 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-04387-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.
Picoult’s 14th novel (after The Tenth Circle, 2006, etc.) of a school shooting begins with high-voltage excitement, then slows by the middle, never regaining its initial pace or appeal.
Peter Houghton, 17, has been the victim of bullying since his first day of kindergarten, made all the more difficult by two factors: In small-town Sterling, N.H., Peter is in high school with the kids who’ve tormented him all his life; and his all-American older brother eggs the bullies on. Peter retreats into a world of video games and computer programming, but he’s never able to attain the safety of invisibility. And then one day he walks into Sterling High with a knapsack full of guns, kills ten students and wounds many others. Peter is caught and thrown in jail, but with over a thousand witnesses and video tape of the day, it will be hard work for the defense to clear him. His attorney, Jordan McAfee, hits on the only approach that might save the unlikable kid—a variation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by bullying. Thrown into the story is Judge Alex Cormier, and her daughter Josie, who used to be best friends with Peter until the popular crowd forced the limits of her loyalty. Also found dead was her boyfriend Matt, but Josie claims she can’t remember anything from that day. Picoult mixes McAfee’s attempt to build a defense with the mending relationship of Alex and Josie, but what proves a more intriguing premise is the response of Peter’s parents to the tragedy. How do you keep loving your son when he becomes a mass murderer? Unfortunately, this question, and others, remain, as the novel relies on repetition (the countless flashbacks of Peter’s victimization) rather than fresh insight. Peter fits the profile, but is never fully fleshed out beyond stereotype. Usually so adept at shaping the big stories with nuance, Picoult here takes a tragically familiar event, pads it with plot, but leaves out the subtleties of character.
Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.Pub Date: March 6, 2007
ISBN: 0-7434-9672-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2007
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