Strange, lyrical, and arresting, this novel will draw readers into its extraordinary spell.
An otherworldly young woman and her father cure townsfolk in this bewitching debut about desire, power, and the body.
Ada and her father have lived outside the village for as long as anyone can remember. The strange pair don't seem to age, and they have extraordinary healing powers that come from The Ground. "The garden is long and mostly grass but back then, close to the house, we kept a patch of moist, fragrant soil," Ada recalls. "This was as much ground as Father had managed to tame, and it was where we put Cures that needed long, deep healing." With a sweep of her hand, Ada puts Cures, or sick people, to sleep and reaches inside their bodies to remove whatever illness lurks there, encouraging the sickness to clot in a bowl or slide down a drain. "This is something Cures don't know about their curing," Ada reveals. "The sickness isn't gone. It just goes elsewhere." When Ada falls for Samson, a handsome villager unafraid of what makes Ada different, Ada's father attempts to protect her. But Ada bristles at Father's accusation that Samson's fascination is dangerous, potentially even draining her healing abilities. Is Samson a worthy suitor, or is his attraction to Ada evidence of a different kind of illness? Will Ada's desire for erotic and personal freedom attract the scrutiny of villagers, putting her and Father in danger? Or—worse—distance her from Father forever? Rainsford pursues these questions with deft lyricism, weaving Ada's story with observations from townsfolk who are, by turns, grateful and wary. Rainsford's fairy and folktale sensibility blends seamlessly with horror as Ada's powers begin to shift in unpredictable ways and take on a darkness all their own. While Rainsford rushes to the novel's ambiguous conclusions, this is nevertheless an astonishing debut heralding the career of an exciting new writer.
Strange, lyrical, and arresting, this novel will draw readers into its extraordinary spell.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3363-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
PERSPECTIVES
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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