Though the family drama reads well, there isn't enough tension surrounding what turned out to be a historically...
The Cuban missile crisis provides the backdrop for a domestic drama in which a Florida housewife unravels while her teenage daughter discovers long-guarded secrets.
In October 1962, Wes Avery is the well-liked owner of a Texaco station in Orlando, proud of his elegant wife, Sarah, and their daughter, Charlotte, just elected to the homecoming court. As the novel opens, Wes notices a series of oddities: increased activity at the nearby Air Force base, fighter jets overhead, long railway convoys headed to the coast. Then President John F. Kennedy makes a speech confirming Wes' growing sense of dread—the Soviets want to use Cuba as a missile base. While Sarah works with the Women's Club's Civil Defense Committee stocking bomb shelters with essentials, Wes, who served in World War II and saw firsthand the destruction at Hiroshima, is sure nothing can survive the game of chicken Kennedy and Khrushchev are playing. Equally nervous is Emilio, a teenage “Pedro Pan” (one of the Cuban children sent to the U.S. by their parents after the revolution), who works part time at the Texaco station. Handsome and with the courtly manners of the displaced Cuban ruling class, Emilio is taking Charlotte to homecoming, a prospect that outrages her race-conscious mother. But that's not the only thing disturbing Sarah, giving her headaches so severe she lies in the dark all day. After a miscarriage led to an unnecessary hysterectomy, Dr. Mike has been prescribing her a potent cocktail of uppers and downers, with the expected results. When Kitty, Sarah's believed-to-be-dead sister, arrives in town, Wes does all he can to keep her away from Sarah and Charlotte. Though Sarah's breakdown is riveting, McCarthy doesn't manage to convey the fear the characters experience living on the edge of a nuclear holocaust.
Though the family drama reads well, there isn't enough tension surrounding what turned out to be a historically anticlimactic event.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8041-7654-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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