A unique look into a culture and era that’s underrepresented in fiction.
Three novellas and a short story track the transformation of an Eastern European village through World War II and Sovietization.
Sadyk is born in the mountains of Azerbaijan, and on the very day he begins his tumultuous life, he loses his mother. He’s raised by his father, Nadzhaf, who sells muskmelons grown on the village’s collective farm, and his Aunt Medina. One day, with little ceremony, Nadzhaf announces that he’s sold the family’s cow and will leave town, likely never to return; he’s been conscripted to fight against the German fascists in the war, and author Aylisli heartbreakingly renders the character’s farewell to his loved ones: “I’ll say what I must. I stand guilty before you, Medina: I’ve driven you into this wretched hole. I’m not coming back. Forgive me, for God’s sake!” He never does return, and Sadyk is raised by Medina and her belligerent husband, Mukush, who’s bitter about the fact that his grandfather’s land has been commandeered by a newly established Soviet collective. Mukush is called to war, as well, and the village is stripped of its able men by a conflict that, as Sadyk sees it, is “poisoning every living thing around it.” In this haunting work, expertly translated from Russian by Young, Aylisli chronicles the transformation of the village through the maturing eyes of Sadyk, who grows from a bookish boy into a student headed for university. The author vividly portrays how Soviet ideology aggressively alters traditional ways of life, as when a factory is sacrilegiously built within a building that houses a mosque. For all its political insight, though, the novel’s heart is its depiction of the relationship between Sadyk and Aunt Medina; even during the most troubled of times, the protagonist takes great solace in believing that “there [is] just the two of us in this endless expanse.” Overall, this is a remarkable work that’s historically edifying and dramatically arresting.
A unique look into a culture and era that’s underrepresented in fiction.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781951508425
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Plamen Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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