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BEFORE THE FEAST

Name: BEFORE THE FEAST
Author: Saša Staniši´c
ISBN: 978-1-941040-39-3

by Saša Staniši´c ; translated by Anthea Bell ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 14, 2016

A brilliant, quirky entertainment.

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In his sophomore novel, Bosnian-born writer Stanišic (How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone, 2008) meditates on history, real and counterfactual.

Fürstenfelde is a sleepy little burg somewhere down along the German-Polish border, territory whose cultural conflicts have proved such fertile ground for Günter Grass. Not much happens there; the wolves stir and the woodpeckers peck, while a diligent vixen sniffs her way through one henhouse after another to feed her kits. Not much happens, that is, until the ferryman goes missing right before the Feast of Saint Anne, a high point on the local calendar. “Big hairy terrorist-type beard, fingernails and all that,” mutters the narrator, who marvels all the same at the way the ferry provides a little light at night. Readers with a sense of classical mythology will be alert to the possibilities when death, or at least the oarsman across the River Styx, takes a holiday. When time stands still, history becomes a jumble; one of the townspeople finds her nicely done hairdo squashed by a Pickelhaube, or spiked helmet, of a century past, while another, bound up in the doings of the old East German police state, is given to saying portentous things such as (this time concerning the vixen) “if a chicken is fearless, that doesn’t make it brave.” Another principal is introduced with a near-Homeric epithet each time he appears: “Herr Schramm, former Lieutenant-Colonel in the National People’s Army, then a forester, now a pensioner.” In the face of a neo-Nazi rally in town, first-generation Nazis are still in view, and when the town archive is broken into, stories from other times and voices come tumbling out. Stanišic’s yarn is a sprawling mess at first glance, but as it unfolds, it’s clear that he has given great thought to structure, to repeated and echoed motifs and themes, and in the end each element in the storyline ties up more or less neatly, if sometimes with a little confusion in getting there.

A brilliant, quirky entertainment.

Pub Date: June 14, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-941040-39-3

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Tin House

Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE YOU COME FROM
by Saša Staniši´c ; translated by Damion Searls

- BOOK REVIEW
HOW THE SOLDIER REPAIRS THE GRAMOPHONE
by Saša Staniši´c & translated by Anthea Bell

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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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.).