A well-intentioned but disappointing tale of women’s military experiences, but one that will likely be of interest to Army...
A fictional chronicle of military women, including a few of the first to attend West Point.
Personal, professional, and romantic dramas abound in this this sequel to Doll and VanDyke’s, debut novel, Refined by Fire (2014). The first installment introduced Lori and Trish, two of the first female students at West Point in the 1970s. In this one, the authors take them to Germany, where they get their first taste of real Army life in Cadet Troop Leadership Training. Meanwhile, Maura, Amelia, and Anne from the first book struggle to find their paths as women in the military, balancing their personal desires and professional obligations. Maura, assigned as Lori’s sponsor, forms a bond with her, and any reservations Lori might have about not being assigned to a fellow West Pointer quickly fade. But Maura also must consider her growing attraction to Eric, a firmly off-limits colonel; Amelia wonders whether or not she should get married; and Anne is faced with a family crisis. After Lori and Trish head back to West Point, they and their college friends have their own problems to deal with, including sexism from their fellow students and those higher up the chain of command. Doll and VanDyke draw on their own military experience, and their attention to period details and military rules and regulations is commendable and persuasive. The book’s unusual subject—women in the military—is also refreshing, as are its myriad depictions of female friendship. Unfortunately, the story is less a propulsive narrative than a series of events strung together, and the prose is often stiff. It’s hard to imagine anyone in a real-life dinner conversation saying, for instance, “I love the opportunities that come from being in the Army.”
A well-intentioned but disappointing tale of women’s military experiences, but one that will likely be of interest to Army buffs.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4575-3911-4
Page Count: 268
Publisher: Dog Ear
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This large, stately, and intensely powerful new novel by the author of Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show is constructed around a cattle drive—an epic journey from dry, hard-drinking south Texas, where a band of retired Texas Rangers has been living idly, to the last outpost and the last days of the old, unsettled West in rough Montana. The time is the 1880s. The characters are larger than life and shimmer: Captain Woodrow Call, who leads the drive, is the American type of an unrelentingly righteous man whose values are puritanical and pioneering and whose orders, which his men inevitably follow, lead, toward the end, to their deaths; talkative Gus McCrae, Call's best friend, learned, lenient, almost magically skilled in a crisis, who is one of those who dies; Newt, the unacknowledged 17-year-old son of Captain Call's one period of self-indulgence and the inheritor of what will become a new and kinder West; and whores, drivers, misplaced sheriffs and scattered settlers, all of whom are drawn sharply, engagingly, movingly. As the rag-tag band drives the cattle 3,000 miles northward, only Call fails to learn that his quest to conquer more new territories in the West is futile—it's a quest that perishes as men are killed by natural menaces that soon will be tamed and by half-starved renegades who soon will die at the hands of those less heroic than themselves. McMurtry shows that it is a quest misplaced in history, in a landscape that is bare of buffalo but still mythic; and it is only one of McMurtry's major accomplishments that he does it without forfeiting a grain of the characters' sympathetic power or of the book's considerable suspense. This is a masterly novel. It will appeal to all lovers of fiction of the first order.
Pub Date: June 1, 1985
ISBN: 068487122X
Page Count: 872
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1985
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SEEN & HEARD
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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