With Maeve Binchy’s talent for interconnected stories, and her tendency toward the sentimental, Holthe is not afraid to...
Holthe shifts from the World War II–era Filipino setting of her richly original debut novel (When the Elephants Dance, 2001) to the contemporary Riviera in this novel of linked stories about characters whose lives jostle and sometimes collide along the French-Italian train line to Cannes.
In the opening story, the collision is literal. Chazz, a troubled, wealthy American, is fatally struck by a car outside the train station. He has been physically running away from two train hustlers, but on a deeper level he has been running from his fear that his wife Claudette is about to end their marriage. Chazz’s death is witnessed by an elderly French Jewess whose son’s heart was broken ten years earlier when his fiancée Claudette ran off with Chazz. Meanwhile, the two train hustlers’ younger brother, GianCarlo, yearns for a normal adolescence and attempts to escape the criminal life. Hoping he has already escaped that life is the local ferry pilot, an ex-con who has been raising a little boy named Claudio as his grandchild ever since Claudio appeared, the scars of previous abuse evident, on his doorstep. Hopelessly hopeful, Claudio and GianCarlo, who have their own interactions, face dark fates that readers will find themselves caring about long after the book’s more sophisticated broken hearts fade. One such broken heart is Sophie, a young photographer who once photographed Chazz. On the coast shooting pictures of a famous Italian chef, Sophie finds herself the fourth corner of a romantic triangle when she becomes involved with the chef’s brother, who is in love with the chef’s wife. In the final story, Chazz’s widow Claudette shows up to tie together the love triangles, mixed messages between lovers and lost opportunities.
With Maeve Binchy’s talent for interconnected stories, and her tendency toward the sentimental, Holthe is not afraid to enter darker the waters in which her characters sometimes swim but often drown. A talent to watch.Pub Date: May 8, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-307-35185-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.
Another surprise from an author who never writes the same novel twice.
Though Whitehead has earned considerable critical acclaim for his earlier work—in particular his debut (The Intuitionist, 1999) and its successor (John Henry Days, 2001)—he’ll likely reach a wider readership with his warmest novel to date. Funniest as well, though there have been flashes of humor throughout his writing. The author blurs the line between fiction and memoir as he recounts the coming-of-age summer of 15-year-old Benji Cooper in the family’s summer retreat of New York’s Sag Harbor. “According to the world, we were the definition of paradox: black boys with beach houses,” writes Whitehead. Caucasians are only an occasional curiosity within this idyll, and parents are mostly absent as well. Each chapter is pretty much a self-contained entity, corresponding to a rite of passage: getting the first job, negotiating the mysteries of the opposite sex. There’s an accident with a BB gun and plenty of episodes of convincing someone older to buy beer, but not much really happens during this particular summer. Yet by the end of it, Benji is well on his way to becoming Ben, and he realizes that he is a different person than when the summer started. He also realizes that this time in his life will eventually live only in memory. There might be some distinctions between Benji and Whitehead, though the novelist also spent his youthful summers in Sag Harbor and was the same age as Benji in 1985, when the novel is set. Yet the first-person narrator has the novelist’s eye for detail, craft of character development and analytical instincts for sharp social commentary.
Not as thematically ambitious as Whitehead’s earlier work, but a whole lot of fun to read.Pub Date: April 28, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-52765-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK TO SCREEN
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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