by Tamara Merrill ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 2019
An eloquent historical novel that explores race and heritage.
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Early 20th-century history informs a fictional family tale about racial prejudice and identity.
In this novel, Georgia O’Brien believes that her ancestors are white and Irish until her mother suffers a medical crisis. Her mother’s cancer diagnosis leads doctors to investigate the family’s genetic background in search of a cell donor. Georgia’s family is shocked to learn that an African American donor would be the best match. Unfortunately, Georgia’s mother does not recover after the treatment. Following her death, the hospital connects Georgia with the donor, a distant cousin named Lawrence McKenny. He explains that their family was descended from siblings born on Malaga Island, Maine. After the Civil War, the island was populated by a mix of white, African American, and East Indian denizens whose intermarriage resulted in a spectrum of complexions. The islanders lived in poverty as “a heathen mix of races” deemed undesirable by authorities and a burden on society. When the islanders were threatened with eviction in 1912, they fled. Those who could pass as white usually did. Intermittent flashbacks peppered throughout the narrative tell the story of the Malagaites in the decade before leaving the island, largely through the eyes of wealthy patrons who bring education to the island. Unfortunately, ingrained views about race and eugenics prevail (“Something had to be done to correct the blight that this degenerate community of half-breeds was casting”), ending with the community disbanding. The revelation of this surprising background blesses Georgia with a new family through her cousins. Ultimately, a greater understanding of the harrowing past causes her to redefine the present. In this illuminating and lucid novel, Merrill (Magic, Mystery & Murder, 2019, etc.) deftly fictionalizes a shameful episode in American history that recently received limited exposure through research projects and public radio broadcasts. Her impressive dedication to thoroughly researching the subject is demonstrated by her inclusion of 50 pages of reproduced original source articles that are intriguing ancillary material. The author’s powerful generational story skillfully questions whether people in modern times have become more enlightened in their views on race and identity. This is a valuable look at an American tragedy. Few books on the Malaga Island calamity exist. Hemingway’s The Malaga Chronicles tells a tale that’s more metaphysical than historical.
An eloquent historical novel that explores race and heritage.Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73385-550-1
Page Count: 310
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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