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MARK TWAIN REMEMBERS

Name: MARK TWAIN REMEMBERS
Author: Thomas Hauser
ISBN: 1-56980-154-1

by Thomas Hauser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 1999

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In his first novel in eight years (The Hawthorne Group, 1991), the author of Muhammad Ali (1991) and other nonfiction draws heavily on his interest in boxing. Better known as a journalist than novelist, Hauser here creates an ostensible memoir by Mark Twain. The story opens with the 75-year-old author contemplating his own imminent death: “This April will be my last.” Inspired by the heavyweight championship fight between Jack Johnson and James Jeffries, Twain recalls an incident from his own youth that serves as the primary narrative. As a young man making his way west, he finds himself in Kansas just before the outset of the Civil War and becomes involved with a cynical, manipulative former-slave-turned-promoter, Hiram Kane (who bears an uncanny resemblance to real-life boxing figure Don King), and with Kane’s own slave, an aging but gifted fighter known only as Bones. When young Sam Clemens cheats Kane out of his rights to Bones, the older man vows vengeance. Eventually, he—ll seek that revenge in a complicated scheme that plays upon young Sam’s romantic streak and burgeoning hormonal drives. At the outset, Hauser warns, “Throughout the manuscript I have commingled Mark Twain’s words and ideas with my own.” The result makes a queasy impact on the reader from the very first page. Hauser uses the benefit of a century’s worth of hindsight to make his fictional Twain even more prescient than the real one. Regrettably, Hauser’s Twain doesn—t write as well as the original, and the novel is riddled with lengthy passages of history that read like a college textbook—and with clichÇs that Twain would surely have eschewed.

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1999

ISBN: 1-56980-154-1

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Barricade

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1999

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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by Thomas Hauser

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MUHAMMAD ALI
by Thomas Hauser

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WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

by Georgia Hunter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2017

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

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Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.

Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.

Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016

Categories:

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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.