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INDEPENDENCE BLUES

An important, coming-of-age tale with a sensitive, observant lead.

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In Garvey’s autobiographical novel, a young Black protagonist (and narrator) learns a lot about his parents and about vicious racism, mostly on a cross-country car trek in the 1960s.

The spine of the novel is the Gardners’ road trip from Los Angeles to Miami in a new Plymouth Valiant. The plan is to ferry the car, father Emerson, mother Madeline, and the unnamed son to a triumphal return to their native Jamaica. Along the way, however, there are many flashbacks. Emerson showed great promise as a medical wannabe, and Madeline is a nurse and outspoken and ambitious. The boy is a precocious only child. Emerson is cautious and submissive when that seems prudent; Madeline is a firecracker, pushing the envelope in the Jim Crow South. The boy (he is reading Wright’s Black Boy in the back seat) is by turns confused, scared by his parents’ bickering, and stunned by the prejudice that was not quite so obvious on the West Coast. The climax of the novel occurs when the civil rights movement is coming to its fevered and most violent pitch. The ending is initially surprising, though not so much, perhaps, on reflection. Garvey is a very good writer, capable of striking similes (crumpled rejection letters “fluttered to the floor like crippled doves”) and the pithy apothegm (“I cannot turn endeavor into penance and pretend it’s virtue”). The changing exposition—shifting between place and time—can be confusing. But one does get used to it. What strikes the reader is the tragic gap—no, chasm—between these Black characters’ obvious talents and indomitable striving and the way that they get rebuffed time and time and time again. It bears mention that the kid in the back seat grew up to be a published writer and accomplished classical violinist.  

An important, coming-of-age tale with a sensitive, observant lead.

Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-9822294-7-7

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Jonkro Books

Review Posted Online: July 30, 2021

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.

Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Pub Date: July 30, 2024

ISBN: 9781250899576

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024

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