An inspiring and informative, if tragic, tale of Taiwan.
Lee’s historical novel, translated from the Mandarin, Hoklo, and Japanese by Smith, recounts the true story of a man who massively expanded Taiwan’s banana trade during dark days of martial law.
Ngôo Tsín-suī is from an agricultural area in southern Taiwan. His goal is to benefit local farmers, improve product quality, and expand Taiwan’s dominance of the Japanese banana market. He has remarkable success, bolstered by his concern for the farmers’ finances and his negotiation skills. He rises to become the director of an industry group, and becomes known locally as the Banana King, but his life at his farm with his wife, Gio̍k-ìn, and their beloved water buffalo, Mari, is where his heart is. Taiwan is in a state of upheaval as World War II ends; Japanese colonizers leave, and Chinese Nationalists arrive. Tsín-suī, who speaks a native Taiwanese language, Hoklo, as well as Japanese, must now learn Mandarin. The resentful local population stages a revolt that the Chinese Nationalist government brutally puts down. Tsín-suī survives the aftermath and continues to flourish in the banana business, but his stature and reputation are threatened when corrupt officials fabricate a fraud case against him. Lee’s historical novel offers readers an impressive amount of detail about a difficult period of Taiwanese history and of a figure whose grand ambition ultimately didn’t succeed (as noted in a foreword). His characterization of Ngôo Tsín-suī as the face of Taiwanese success is highly readable as various challenges, including literal storms, swirl around him. However, readers may find that the granular level of detail sometimes bogs the story down. Lee’s depiction of Tsín-suī as an innovator who put cash in the hands of small farmers is inspiring, and his story offers life lessons as well as obvious warnings about authoritarian government. Smith’s translation uses natural, contemporary English while preserving what he can of the original languages (“He must have eaten some tshau-phang sweet potatoes. Must be that’s why his stomach is so bloated”), along with providing explanatory footnotes (in this case, defining tshau-phang as “giving off a rotting odor”).
An inspiring and informative, if tragic, tale of Taiwan.Pub Date: May 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781945049446
Page Count: 458
Publisher: Shadelandhouse Modern Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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