Ireland’s history is well incorporated, but it’s the characters’ firsthand accounts that resonate the loudest.
Mack’s debut historical thriller centers on the O’Hare family in Ireland in the mid-19th century and Irishman Jack Danaher, who’s made his home in America in the 1980s.
Sean O’Hare and his wife and children, like others in their homeland, are dying from starvation and disease. Sean’s son, Paddy, decides whether joining the rebellion against the ruling English will help his country’s people. Later, Jack himself lives through much of “the Troubles” and endures Bloody Sunday, where his sister May is one of the protestors killed by British soldiers. The rebellion grows increasingly violent as the years pass. The Irish Republican Army buys arms in the U.S., and both sides, English and Irish, commit outright murder. The O’Hare plot is the more engrossing of the two storylines, centering on Sean’s family as they’re faced with a failing potato crop and harsh winters. It’s an ardent story that shows the family’s personal trials against the backdrop of a country in upheaval. The other half of the novel introduces numerous characters involved in the fight against England, including IRA members, but is a little less focused. Jack is just one of many men in the novel who may be killing loyalists. But he shares so much of the stage with other characters—including cousin Sean Curran and powerful, godfather-esque Jimmy O’Hare—that he isn’t a bona fide protagonist. He even reconnects with lost love Joanie, but the reunion is too short and pales compared with Paddy’s traditional romance—Paddy first asks permission from the father of his love interest before courting her. Still, there are unforgettable scenes, particularly Sean Curran and others in an Irish prison; deeming themselves political prisoners, they stage a hunger strike. The uncompromising ending, too, is both open and rather unnerving.
Ireland’s history is well incorporated, but it’s the characters’ firsthand accounts that resonate the loudest.Pub Date: March 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1483424613
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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