An undeniably audacious, if self-consciously Southwest Gothic debut that fans of Cormac McCarthy should adore.
In Froderberg’s highly stylized, uniquely voiced first novel, a young bride’s growing disillusionment about her marriage coincides with the drought plaguing her Arizona community.
Seventeen-year-old Girl, whose briefly sketched, quickly forgotten parents have left her pretty much on her own, marries Son, the heir to a successful rancher, after a short, passionate courtship. Son’s mother and father, called Rose and Rose’s Daddy, are loving in-laws and their ranch was a paradise of fecundity in its time, as Rose’s Daddy explains in elaborate recitations. But a drought has set in, both physical and spiritual. Without water, the local economy is in a tailspin. The ranch sits above an aquifer, and in the past Rose’s Daddy has made a fortune selling off water. But now he is struggling. Son is soon leaving Girl to drink and entertain other women, in particular the daughter of his father’s longtime mistress Pearl. Deeply religious Rose withers away and dies, but not before she’s introduced Girl to Padre, a New Age minister. Son’s father sinks into a deep depression, ultimately committing suicide. Son’s mourning takes the form of profound anger and even wilder carousing. Girl seeks counsel from Padre, on whom she develops a profound and requited crush. She moves off the farm and stays briefly with Pearl’s father while Pearl and her mother are “north,” where Pearl is preparing to give birth, possibly to Son’s child, an irony since Girl has an abortion. But Son begs Girl to return to him and together they prepare for the big rodeo. The church burns down, and Padre moves on to another parish. Son is thrown from his horse, sustaining major neurogenic injuries that leave him with a ruined face and completely dependent on Girl. And then the rains come. Realism is not the point in Girl’s elliptical narrative, told in a vernacular that mixes biblical grandiosity and down-home grit.
An undeniably audacious, if self-consciously Southwest Gothic debut that fans of Cormac McCarthy should adore.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-09877-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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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