A novel that strikes all the proper notes but doesn’t quite blend them together or inspire.
An upper-middle-class woman’s life and marriage are disturbed when she suspects her beloved older brother is a serial bomber in this quiet second novel from Kegan (The Baby, 1990), inspired by the story of David Kaczynski, who turned in his brother for being the Unabomber.
The daughter of an old, progressive, politically influential California family, Natalie Askedahl lives comfortably with her lawyer husband and two daughters, the oldest of whom is an academic prodigy. She remains distant from her siblings—sanctimonious hippie sister Sara and recluse brother Bobby, to whom she had once been deeply devoted. Bobby’s mathematical genius imploded on itself years ago, and he now lives a life of isolation in a cabin in the wilderness. One day, while examining a paranoid letter from Bobby to their mother, Natalie notices striking similarities to the manifesto of a serial bomber who has been targeting faculty members at California’s public universities. After some deliberation, she turns this information over to the FBI. As her family’s illusions about Bobby rapidly unravel, Natalie clings to the sweetest memories of her brother and probes at the more painful ones. The uncovered layers are predictable, and none of the revelations feel particularly fresh. Natalie's unease about her brilliant daughter’s resemblance to Bobby’s young self is present but underexplored, and her marriage troubles hit all the expected beats. She's a milquetoast, though it's not entirely her fault—when she asserts herself and makes her own choices, the other characters unfairly eviscerate her for it. The novel comes most alive when class anxieties and clashing politics surface. “My parents had devoted their lives to the vision of California that my country-club in-laws had proudly voted to undo,” she muses in a rare moment of anger. If only there’d been more of them.
A novel that strikes all the proper notes but doesn’t quite blend them together or inspire.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-0931-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
PROFILES
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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