A rollicking soap opera with as many twists as a corkscrew, written with an investigative reporter’s eye for detail and nose...
Debut novel by New York Times Pulitzer-winning correspondent Egan (Lasso the Wind, 1998, etc.) about a young woman’s quest to uncover the cause of her brother’s death.
When young Angelo Cartolano moved to the Pacific Northwest just after WWII, he came up with the idea of importing grapes from his native Italy and eventually created the first (and, many believe, the best) winery in Washington State. But after 50 years, Angelo is getting on. His daughter Brunella is an architect in Seattle, currently working as consultant to a developer who wants to reclaim an abandoned fishing village on the Puget Sound; his son Niccolo is a smokejumper in the Forest Service. An extended drought has led to a series of disastrous firestorms in the region, and Niccolo is killed fighting one of them. Angelo and Brunella are both devastated, but their shock turns to horror when they learn that the Forest Service has begun an investigation into claims that Niccolo’s own incompetence led to his death and those of the men under his command. Brunella, meanwhile, finds herself at the center of a controversy when she testifies at the last minute against the development she had been hired to vet. She also learns that a nearby Indian tribe is trying to siphon off water supplies in order to construct a casino on its reservation, and she begins to suspect that this may have had something to do with the failure of the fire pumps that led to her brother’s death and vilification. Overwhelmed by such revelations, Brunella flees to Italy and tries to begin a new life. But family ghosts are not so easily stilled.
A rollicking soap opera with as many twists as a corkscrew, written with an investigative reporter’s eye for detail and nose for coincidence—even though, like a good Barolo, it’s a bit too strong to swallow in one gulp.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-4000-4099-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Reid’s tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of...
A road trip in a snowstorm takes a sinister turn for a man and his girlfriend, the novel’s unnamed narrator.
Reid’s preternaturally creepy debut unfolds like a bad dream, the kind from which you desperately want to wake up yet also want to keep dreaming so you can see how everything fits together—or, rather, falls apart. The narrator, known only as the girlfriend, is driving with her beau, Jake, a scientist, to meet his parents at the family farm. The relationship is new, but, as the title implies, she’s already thinking of calling it quits. Jake is somewhat strange and fond of philosophizing, though the tendency to speak in the abstract is something that unites the pair. The weather outside turns nastier, and Reid intercuts the couple’s increasingly tense journey with short interstitial chapters that imply a crime has been committed, though the details are vague. Matters don’t improve when Jake and the narrator arrive at the farm, a hulking collection of buildings in the middle of nowhere. The meeting with her potential in-laws is as awkward as it is frightening, with Reid expertly needling the reader—and the narrator—into a state of near-blind panic with every footfall on a basement step. On the drive back, Jake makes a detour to an empty high school, which will take the couple to new heights of the terrifying and the bizarre.
Reid’s tightly crafted tale toys with the nature of identity and comes by its terror honestly, building a wall of intricately layered psychological torment so impenetrable it’s impossible to escape.Pub Date: June 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2692-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
An engaging, inclusive debut.
A young woman with cognitive disabilities finds inspiration in Viking legends and prepares herself to become a hero when her brother gets involved with drug dealers.
Zelda knows she’s different than most people she meets, and she understands that difference is because of something called fetal alcohol syndrome. She has seen the unkind glances and heard the muttered slurs, but really, she just wants what any 21-year-old wants: love, acceptance, and some degree of independence to make decisions about her life. Also? A really good sword would be useful. Zelda is obsessed with Vikings—their legends, their fierce loyalty, their courage in the face of danger. Like the ancient clans, she finds strength in her tribe: her older brother, Gert, and his on-again, off-again girlfriend, AK47, plus her helpful therapist and her friends at the community center, especially her boyfriend, Marxy. He isn’t the best kisser, but he’s willing to try sex, a subject about which Zelda is definitely curious. But when Gert struggles to pay the bills and gets involved with dangerous drug dealers, Zelda knows she has to step in and help him whatever the cost. “The hero in a Viking legend is always smaller than the villain,” she reasons. “That is what makes it a legend.” In this engaging debut novel, MacDonald skillfully balances drama and violence with humor, highlighting how an unorthodox family unit is still a family. He’s never condescending, and his frank examination of the real issues facing cognitively disabled adults—sexuality, employment, independence—is bracing and compassionate. With Zelda, he’s created an unforgettable character, one whose distinctive voice is entertaining and inspiring. Will appeal to fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
An engaging, inclusive debut.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-2676-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
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