A powerful exploration of war’s effects on those who survive it, and specifically of the devastating ambiguities of “survivor’s guilt”—in a first novel by a journalist heretofore known for his 1997 Harper’s article “Prisoner of War” and other reports from such fronts as Bosnia and Chechnya. The story begins in Kurdistan under Iraqui attack, where “war photographer” Mark Walsh, wounded by artillery fire, has survived, though separated from his colleague and close friend Colin, and traumatized more than he knows. Neither the fatalistic acceptance of the Kurdish doctor who treats him nor his return home to New York and his lover Elena forestalls Mark’s increasingly debilitating disorientation and physical lassitude. Then, to Spanish-born Elena’s dismay, her grandfather Joaquin Morales learns of Mark’s condition, and arrives from Spain prepared to “purify” him—as, we learn in carefully spaced narrative disclosures, Joaquin had done during the Spanish Civil War. He had run an “institute” then dedicated to rehabilitating members of Generalissimo Franco’s notorious “blood squads”—and Elena has never forgiven “the Fascist Father Confessor.— As this harrowing tale moves toward an overpowering conclusion, Mark and Joaquin together—and Elena observing and loving them both—painstakingly accomplish conscience’s intricate balancing act: accepting responsibility for one’s mistakes while simultaneously forgiving oneself for living, and for being unable to save those who died. Triage is superbly conceived and plotted, and written in an understated prose that wrings great resonance from delicately placed simple sentences (as Mark laboriously makes love, “His back arched and Elena imagined blood spraying inside him”; as they lie in bed, “Elena heard the soft brush of his eyelashes against the pillow, knew he was still looking out at the night—). A magnificent homage to the method, subject, and spirit of another Scribner author, Ernest Hemingway, that reads, and feels like, a contemporary A Farewell to Arms; it really does.
Pub Date: Oct. 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-684-84695-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
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