Harun's novel reverberates with nostalgia, psychological insight, and the sacredness of community.
An intimate look at a small Pacific Northwest town and the complex lives of its people.
In early 1963, in order to reinvigorate the American people after the nervous terrors of the Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy had an idea for a national event that could bring folks together and make a show of the country’s spirit. It was called “The Big Walk,” and it was originally aimed at the Marine Corps—a challenge to walk 50 miles in 20 hours. Soon people all over the country had taken up the challenge and with grit, stamina, and patriotic fervor, planned out and hiked 50 mile paths in and around their towns and cities. This community effort is the framing device of Harun’s novel, a premise that works extremely well not only as a way to delineate her characters as they painstakingly traverse the thick woods and hunters’ paths of the Washington coast and forestland, but also thematically, as a metaphor for the ways in which these people climb, slip, stumble, bump, and redirect themselves through their lives. The residents of Humtown making up this motley pack of sojourners include the local gossip, who happens to be the town’s sole phone operator; a teenage girl, desperately afraid of her abusive brother, with a stolen item to dispose of; a recently widowed schoolteacher racked by grief and plagued by thoughts of suicide; a cheerful yet peculiar man who may or may not be a Catholic priest; and an assortment of Boy Scouts and old-time farmers with naturalist skills to display and courage to prove. Overshadowing all in this exceptionally well-drawn, dusky world is the eerie disappearance of a young mother and her two children, the husband likely enough responsible for it but with no evidence against him, a dark man skittering nervously, threateningly round the edges of the group’s physically punishing, ultimately redemptive path.
Harun's novel reverberates with nostalgia, psychological insight, and the sacredness of community.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781946724656
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Acre
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”
Idyllic Catalina Island turns out to be just as crime infested as the rest of Los Angeles County in the latest series launch by the creator of Harry Bosch, Renée Ballard, and the Lincoln Lawyer.
Det. Sgt. Stilwell has been bounced off the county homicide squad and rusticized to Catalina, where the exclusive Black Marlin Club won’t admit even four-term Avalon Mayor Doug Allen to full membership and the most serious infraction seems to be the killing and cutting up of a buffalo, presumably by Henry Gaston, who operates Island Mystery Tours when he’s not threatening endangered species. All that changes with the discovery of a body sunk in the surrounding waters. The corpse, most recognizable by its streak of purple hair, is that of Leigh-Anne Moss, a Black Marlin server recently fired for fraternizing with members and guests she sees as potential sugar daddies. Stilwell is sufficiently invested in her murder to compete vigorously over jurisdiction with Rex Ahearn, the LA County homicide detective who kept his job when Stilwell lost his. Their rivalry, fueled by mutual contempt, is only the first hint that Stilwell will end up fighting his counterparts in law enforcement and local government at least as hard as he fights crooks like hit man Merris Spivak and Oscar “Baby Head” Terranova, Henry’s boss, who comes under sharper scrutiny when Henry disappears and ends up dead himself. Connelly handles his hero’s obligatory romance with assistant harbormaster Tash Dano and his increasingly wary alliance with assistant D.A. Monika Juarez with equal professionalism, and if the wrap-up leaves some loose ends dangling, well, that’s what franchises are for.
As the prosecutor sadly observes: “All this because of a dead buffalo.”Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9780316588485
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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