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NOTHING BUT A SMILE

A charmer. Even the little old lady from Dubuque will like this one.

Jimmy Stewart and Ann Sheridan might have been the protagonists of this goofy postwar romance, the successor to Michigan resident Amick’s debut novel The Lake, the River, and the Other Lake (2005).

The book is framed by a brief “Prologue” and “Epilogue,” in which an elderly widow named Sal, en route to a nursing home, watches with amusement as family members stumble onto an arresting surprise stored in her attic. We’re then treated to a leisurely, very funny account of the partnership formed by Sal, immediately following World War II, with her Army officer husband “Chesty” Chesterton’s comrade Winton “Wink” Dutton, a promising cartoonist and illustrator (albeit burdened with a crippled right hand). Wink, discharged, has journeyed to Chicago to look in on Chesty’s young wife Sal, who’s trying to keep their family’s business—a failing camera shop—alive. Upon renting a room from Sal, Wink learns she’s been augmenting the family income by posing as a pinup girl—and, when Chesty’s anticipated return home does not occur, the two join forces to create a thriving cottage industry. With the collusion of Sal’s equally bosomy gal pal Reenie, they create visual delights for the pleasure of horny GIs everywhere, and everything seems swell—until the subject of an unauthorized photo brings trouble; censors harass the hapless “pornographers”; and the well-meaning innocents flee to Wink’s hometown and the muted promise of a new life. The novel is fun throughout, if a tad redundant, and will remind many of the small-town fictional delights offered by Garrison Keillor and Eric Kraft. Amick has a gift for creating atmospheres that are both comic and oddly threatening, and he’s adept at layering in nifty references to the period’s pop culture.

A charmer. Even the little old lady from Dubuque will like this one.

Pub Date: March 10, 2009

ISBN: 978-0-307-37736-4

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2009

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THE TESTAMENTS

Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.

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Atwood goes back to Gilead.

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.

Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.

Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Nan A. Talese

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019

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THINGS FALL APART

This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.

Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.

Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.

This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.

Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958

ISBN: 0385474547

Page Count: 207

Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky

Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958

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