An uneven war tale with a young, spirited protagonist.
A debut historical novel focuses on the friendship between two teenage girls, one white and the other black, living on a Georgia plantation during the Civil War.
Malayna Wellington and her best friend, Hattie Wellton, were born hours apart in October 1845. Malayna’s father, John, is the wealthy white owner of the 1,920-acre Magnolia Landing plantation. Hattie is the daughter of plantation slaves. Raised in the protected bubble of privilege, Malayna narrates this slim book in a voice filled with youthful innocence. She describes Magnolia Landing as a refuge of sorts for slaves who were treated cruelly on other plantations: “No one ever went without, no matter what the color of the skin.…It was this forward thinking that kept the Wellingtons on the edge of the elite social realms of Southern gentility.” When war breaks out in 1861, John draws up papers giving his slaves (or “necessary helpers,” as Malayna’s mother likes to call them) not only their freedom, but also an acre of plantation land per family. But soon enough, all the able-bodied men join the Confederacy. The two naïve but determined 15-year-old friends, with the help of Malayna’s youngest sister, Johnna, divvy up responsibilities for maintaining the plantation. The harsher realities of war are brought home when Union troops encamp at Magnolia Landing. Northern men and Southern women find they have much to learn about one another in this simplistic yet engaging series opener. There are enough incidents of violence instigated by the novel’s villain, the despicable Union Capt. Sinclair—including spooked horses and an attempted rape—as well as a few budding romances to keep the tale moving. Mallimo’s prose carries a gentle Southern cadence and reflects the more formal linguistic style of the period. The narrative is mainly plot driven, with a large supporting cast of minimally developed secondary characters. And many readers will object to the portrayal of white slave owners as kind and generous. But Malayna is a likable and feisty heroine. In the annoying tradition of old-time magazine serials, the book ends in the middle of an action scene.
An uneven war tale with a young, spirited protagonist.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-72832-653-5
Page Count: 110
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
In Clavell's last whopper, Tai-pan, the hero became tai-pan (supreme ruler) of Hong Kong following England's victory in the first Opium War. Clavell's new hero, John Blackthorne, a giant Englishman, arrives in 17th century Japan in search of riches and becomes the right arm of the warlord Toranaga who is even more powerful than the Emperor. Superhumanly self-confident (and so sexually overendowed that the ladies who bathe him can die content at having seen the world's most sublime member), Blackthorne attempts to break Portugal's hold on Japan and encourage trade with Elizabeth I's merchants. He is a barbarian not only to the Japanese but also to Portuguese Catholics, who want him dispatched to a non-papist hell. The novel begins on a note of maelstrom-and-tempest ("'Piss on you, storm!' Blackthorne raged. 'Get your dung-eating hands off my ship!'") and teems for about 900 pages of relentless lopped heads, severed torsos, assassins, intrigue, war, tragic love, over-refined sex, excrement, torture, high honor, ritual suicide, hot baths and breathless haikus. As in Tai-pan, the carefully researched material on feudal Oriental money matters seems to he Clavell's real interest, along with the megalomania of personal and political power. After Blackthorne has saved Toranaga's life three times, he is elevated to samurai status, given a fief and made a chief defender of the empire. Meanwhile, his highborn Japanese love (a Catholic convert and adulteress) teaches him "inner harmony" as he grows ever more Eastern. With Toranaga as shogun (military dictator), the book ends with the open possibility of a forthcoming sequel. Engrossing, predictable and surely sellable.
Pub Date: June 23, 1975
ISBN: 0385343248
Page Count: 998
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1975
BOOK TO SCREEN
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