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In the Year of the Rabbit

Name: In the Year of the Rabbit
Author: Terence A. Harkin

by Terence A. Harkin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2021

A meandering, cerebral work about a man clawing his way out of darkness.

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A combat photographer seeks respite from his grief in Harkins’ novel of the Vietnam War, a sequel to The Big Buddha Bicycle Race (2018).

In 1972, U.S. Air Force cameraman Brendan Leary is in a military hospital in Thailand, recovering from injuries sustained in a deadly attack. Among the dead is Tukada, a Thai woman whom Leary loved. After he’s discharged, he’s depressed and haunted by strange visions: “It’s just a bunch of flashes—gunfire, the thumping of chopper blades, Tukada’s death rattle.” He tries to distract himself by teaching English, playing in a garage band, and exploring meditation with the help of a Buddhist monk.It isn’t long before he’s sent back up in the air, however. He experiences another brush with death when his gunship is downed over enemy territory, and he and a friend are the only ones to make it out alive. After a long ordeal involving capture by the North Vietnamese Army, Leary makes it to safety. But as he reaches the end of his rope, Buddhism and perhaps the love of a new woman may be the only things that can save him. Harkins’ prose is muscular and immersive, detailing Leary’s war experience with surprising imagery: “The engine exploded again and, like the tongue of a hungry dog, flames began lapping at the gash in the wing…suddenly we skidded sideways like an airborne hockey puck.” The novel marks an atypical entry in the annals of Vietnam War literature, as Leary isn’t a soldier, per se and isn’t stationed in Vietnam. It’s also a difficult book to enter cold, as it starts right where the previous novel left off, with little explanation, and some 16 different characters are introduced or referenced in the first four pages. Like many characters on spiritual quests, Leary can come off as a bit annoying at times, quoting Khalil Gibran and going on for way too long about his band. Overall, the narrative is slim and slow, and as a result, its readership may be narrowed to those who underwent similar disillusionment during the Vietnam era.

A meandering, cerebral work about a man clawing his way out of darkness.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN

by Jacqueline Harpman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1997

None

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In this futuristic fantasy (which is immediately reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale), the nameless narrator passes from her adolescent captivity among women who are kept in underground cages following some unspecified global catastrophe, to a life as, apparently, the last woman on earth. The material is stretched thin, but Harpman's eye for detail and command of tone (effectively translated from the French original) give powerful credibility to her portrayal of a human tabula rasa gradually acquiring a fragmentary comprehension of the phenomena of life and loving, and a moving plangency to her muted cri de coeur ("I am the sterile offspring of a race about which I know nothing, not even whether it has become extinct").

None

Pub Date: May 1, 1997

ISBN: 1-888363-43-6

Page Count: 224

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ORLANDA
by Jacqueline Harpman & translated by Ros Schwartz

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.