Throughout the novel’s extremes of violence and tragedy, Anam always allows the ultimate humanity of the characters to shine...
In the free-standing second installment of her planned trilogy about Bangladesh, Anam (A Golden Age, 2008) transfers her focus from a mother who sacrificed so much before and during the war for national independence to her children, grown and at odds in the revolution’s painful aftermath.
The narration shifts between the mid-1980s, when disillusioned Bangladeshis find themselves under the rule of a corrupt dictatorship, and the ’70s, when the war has just ended. In the ’70s, Maya, studying medicine, is first stupefied, then enraged by the changes in her brother Sohail. Her protector as a child, then a socialist intellectual and heroic soldier, Sohail gradually withdraws into narrow religious faith. The philosophically opposed siblings goad each other until Maya leaves. In 1984, after seven years away, Maya returns to her mother’s home from the rural community where she’s been practicing medicine. Sohail, now a religious leader with a growing following, has become even more entrenched and inflexible. Although his wife has recently died, he is too busy tending to his devotees to pay attention to his small son Zaid. Neither in the ’70s nor ’80s does Maya know or understand what Sohail experienced as a soldier that has made the safety of rigid belief so attractive. But when her mother becomes seriously ill, Maya herself finds solace, however short-lived, in praying with the cloistered women devoted to Sohail. At the same time, she is drawn to political activism and to Sohail’s seemingly cynical old friend Joy, who has spent time in the United States. And she is intermittently concerned about Zaid, a troubled child starving for affection. Then Sohail, genuinely concerned in his own misguided fashion, decides to send Zaid away to a fundamentalist madrassa. Even after the crisis that ensues, Sohail remains more than a scary fundamentalist while Maya finds a way to recover from her own mistakes.
Throughout the novel’s extremes of violence and tragedy, Anam always allows the ultimate humanity of the characters to shine through.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-147876-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
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