An intriguing concept that’s marred by uneven execution.
A narrative that explores the cycle of life through the perspective of an oak leaf.
Debut authorLandon offers readers a modern-day parable with this slim, 48-page narrative, using the travels of a single leaf to teach a lesson of spiritual unity and personal identity. It begins with the aforementioned Leaf, clinging to the old tree to which it’s been attached its entire life. Fearful of letting go, it cries to the Oak, “I fear that I am the last to leave, I fear I will not find my kin, I fear this silent wind will still and let me fall.” The Oak explains that the Leaf must embrace the cycle of life and resign itself to “regal winter,” or death, which will “carry you and your kind towards the springtime of your new worlds.” Thus begins the Leaf’s journey toward discovery and rebirth, as it’s “taken by the winds of change to the icy realms…inside the windows of soul.” The Leaf experiences the beauty of nature as it travels, as when it lands on a “pool upon a hard stone face, with the reflection of the sky laid upon its surface like a memory,” and it faces terror when it’s consumed by a great owl (“And the leaf was devoured and chewed and crushed and swallowed and blended into blood’spilt fleshstrips”) only to be later born again. Overall, the conceit of the Leaf’s voyage as a representation of the life cycle is a compelling one. However, Landon’s prose often feels heavy-handed and, in some cases, downright confusing, with several images that readers may find difficult to grasp. For example, as a storm rages, the author writes that “The bones creaked and groaned like galleon’s on an open sea while the cartilages screamed in delightful duress as they stretched to limits never before reached like yogi’s to a posture prayed”; in this passage, it’s unclear to whom or what the bones and cartilages belong. In addition, the work would have benefited from more careful copy editing to catch distracting grammatical errors.
An intriguing concept that’s marred by uneven execution.Pub Date: April 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-9822-8345-2
Page Count: 35
Publisher: BalboaPressUK
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A stunning feat of storytelling and moral clarity.
An Irishman uncovers abuse at a Magdalen laundry in this compact and gripping novel.
As Christmas approaches in the winter of 1985, Bill Furlong finds himself increasingly troubled by a sense of dissatisfaction. A coal and timber merchant living in New Ross, Ireland, he should be happy with his life: He is happily married and the father of five bright daughters, and he runs a successful business. But the scars of his childhood linger: His mother gave birth to him while still a teenager, and he never knew his father. Now, as he approaches middle age, Furlong wonders, “What was it all for?…Might things never change or develop into something else, or new?” But a series of troubling encounters at the local convent, which also functions as a “training school for girls” and laundry business, disrupts Furlong’s sedate life. Readers familiar with the history of Ireland’s Magdalen laundries, institutions in which women were incarcerated and often died, will immediately recognize the circumstances of the desperate women trapped in New Ross’ convent, but Furlong does not immediately understand what he has witnessed. Keegan, a prizewinning Irish short story writer, says a great deal in very few words to extraordinary effect in this short novel. Despite the brevity of the text, Furlong’s emotional state is fully rendered and deeply affecting. Keegan also carefully crafts a web of complicity around the convent’s activities that is believably mundane and all the more chilling for it. The Magdalen laundries, this novel implicitly argues, survived not only due to the cruelty of the people who ran them, but also because of the fear and selfishness of those who were willing to look aside because complicity was easier than resistance.
A stunning feat of storytelling and moral clarity.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5874-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.
A British widow travels to Ibiza and learns that it’s never too late to have a happy life.
In a world that seems to be getting more unstable by the moment, Haig’s novels are a steady ship in rough seas, offering a much-needed positive message. In works like the bestselling The Midnight Library (2020), he reminds us that finding out what you truly love and where you belong in the universe are the foundations of building a better existence. His latest book continues this upbeat messaging, albeit in a somewhat repetitive and facile way. Retired British schoolteacher Grace Winters discovers that an old acquaintance has died and left her a ramshackle home in Ibiza. A widow who lost her only child years earlier, Grace is at first reluctant to visit the house, because, at 72, she more or less believes her chance for happiness is over—but when she rouses herself to travel to the island, she discovers the opposite is true. A mystery surrounds her friend’s death involving a roguish islander, his activist daughter, an internationally famous DJ, and a strange glow in the sea that acts as a powerful life force and upends Grace’s ideas of how the cosmos works. Framed as a response to a former student’s email, the narrative follows Grace’s journey from skeptic (she was a math teacher, after all) to believer in the possibility of magic as she learns to move on from the past. Her transformation is the book’s main conflict, aside from a protest against an evil developer intent on destroying Ibiza’s natural beauty. The outcome is never in doubt, and though the story often feels stretched to the limit—this novel could have easily been a novella—the author’s insistence on the power of connection to change lives comes through loud and clear.
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593489277
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
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