In this short story collection, women from different countries and walks of life undergo transformative experiences through family and culture.
The female characters in the six stories in this volume have diverse backgrounds but also numerous similarities. For example, Uma is a married woman living in Calcutta in “Conscience,” and Mia of “Change” is a widowed Californian. But both women are teachers. And while Mia has lost her husband, Glen, Uma’s marriage to Lalit is strained, as he’s rarely home. All the women dauntlessly face significant changes, which often entail traveling to or living in other countries. In the opening tale, “From the Heart,” Min-Seo is a South Korean wife who moves to France with her husband, Ji Hoon. She’s a sociable individual who now feels withdrawn, as she struggles to communicate with people in an unfamiliar tongue. Likewise, in “Fourteen Days,” Indian American Julie takes a trip to Calcutta, where her parents are from. She’s shocked when she realizes that her 14-year-old maid, Saras, in India doesn’t attend school. Julie is determined to help her despite indifference from the girl’s employer. The female characters furthermore overcome the burden of other people’s expectations. Saras, for one, ran away from home to evade an arranged marriage when she was a mere 11 years old. In the same vein, both Mia’s mother and her son, Pierce, believe she should date eligible Kyle, Glen’s former tennis partner. But Mia asserts that she’s not lonely. Ghose Chotani (Pictures Through the Rearview Mirror, 2018) uses various cultures to enrich her tales. Whether they’re persevering in their own culture or immersed in an entirely new one, the women continually learn from their experiences, which makes for dynamic characters and more robust stories. The author’s detail-laden prose is expressive, though occasionally verbose, like the description of a train that passes “the platform and buildings, then, swiftly, picked up speed, fast.” But she also infuses her stories with profundity: “Life is about constant readjustment,” and anticipating that things will stay the same “is placing oneself in the puddle of ignorance.”
Six admirable female protagonists lead heartfelt and fulfilling tales.Pub Date: April 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5437-0510-2
Page Count: 362
Publisher: PartridgeIndia
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.
11
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Inseparable identical twin sisters ditch home together, and then one decides to vanish.
The talented Bennett fuels her fiction with secrets—first in her lauded debut, The Mothers (2016), and now in the assured and magnetic story of the Vignes sisters, light-skinned women parked on opposite sides of the color line. Desiree, the “fidgety twin,” and Stella, “a smart, careful girl,” make their break from stultifying rural Mallard, Louisiana, becoming 16-year-old runaways in 1954 New Orleans. The novel opens 14 years later as Desiree, fleeing a violent marriage in D.C., returns home with a different relative: her 8-year-old daughter, Jude. The gossips are agog: “In Mallard, nobody married dark....Marrying a dark man and dragging his blueblack child all over town was one step too far.” Desiree's decision seals Jude’s misery in this “colorstruck” place and propels a new generation of flight: Jude escapes on a track scholarship to UCLA. Tending bar as a side job in Beverly Hills, she catches a glimpse of her mother’s doppelgänger. Stella, ensconced in White society, is shedding her fur coat. Jude, so Black that strangers routinely stare, is unrecognizable to her aunt. All this is expertly paced, unfurling before the book is half finished; a reader can guess what is coming. Bennett is deeply engaged in the unknowability of other people and the scourge of colorism. The scene in which Stella adopts her White persona is a tour de force of doubling and confusion. It calls up Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the book's 50-year-old antecedent. Bennett's novel plays with its characters' nagging feelings of being incomplete—for the twins without each other; for Jude’s boyfriend, Reese, who is trans and seeks surgery; for their friend Barry, who performs in drag as Bianca. Bennett keeps all these plot threads thrumming and her social commentary crisp. In the second half, Jude spars with her cousin Kennedy, Stella's daughter, a spoiled actress.
Kin “[find] each other’s lives inscrutable” in this rich, sharp story about the way identity is formed.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-53629-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
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Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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