Brock sketches a hazy outline of 1920s high society as seen through the eyes of a woman who would be free from its hollow...
A young socialite in Jazz Age New York City must decide between a comfortable but stifling life with her distant husband and the prospect of romance with a mysterious painter.
Brock’s debut novel examines the social and familial pressures faced by Vera Bellington, trapped in the gilded cage of a loveless marriage and bound by rules of decorum enforced by her imposing mother. Despite an impeccable education in art history from Vassar College, where she let down her hair with scandalous Southern gal pal Bea Stillman, Vera’s treated like a set piece by a husband who’s more interested in conducting “business” than paying attention to his wife. When Vera’s mother asks her to dust off her art history background and examine a painting for purchase, Vera unwittingly stumbles on a forgery ring that dredges up her repressed past and opens the door to a new acquaintance, the romantic muralist Emil Hallan. What follows is a world of trouble for both Vera and Hallan, as neither has the cunning required to stage a private affair. Predictably, their time together dissolves into misplaced suspicion and existential angst. As the novel alternates between Vera’s past at Vassar and her present unraveling, the story hints at scandals both small and large but never quite delivers on either front. This larger structural problem is exacerbated by weak secondary character development; the smoke and mirrors surrounding Hallan might just hide the fact that he’s more of a cardboard cutout fantasy than a flesh-and-blood artist, while poor Bea is left to languish in the past, along with all her vim and vigor. Since Vera’s privilege shields her from dealing with the consequences of betrayal—both of her true nature and of her friendship with Bea—even would-be antagonists offer pat advice that steers the flailing socialite toward an inevitable break with her family. If only we all had the ability to hire an avuncular private detective who swoops in at the ninth hour to confirm the meaningful struggles of our lives are always fraught, always internal.
Brock sketches a hazy outline of 1920s high society as seen through the eyes of a woman who would be free from its hollow promises. Somehow her main character wallows in indecision, even as circumstances allow for the possibility of personal growth and reinvention.Pub Date: May 3, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90511-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 10, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.
Norwegian novelist Jacobsen folds a quietly powerful coming-of-age story into a rendition of daily life on one of Norway’s rural islands a hundred years ago in a novel that was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
Ingrid Barrøy, her father, Hans, mother, Maria, grandfather Martin, and slightly addled aunt Barbro are the owners and sole inhabitants of Barrøy Island, one of numerous small family-owned islands in an area of Norway barely touched by the outside world. The novel follows Ingrid from age 3 through a carefree early childhood of endless small chores, simple pleasures, and unquestioned familial love into her more ambivalent adolescence attending school off the island and becoming aware of the outside world, then finally into young womanhood when she must make difficult choices. Readers will share Ingrid’s adoration of her father, whose sense of responsibility conflicts with his romantic nature. He adores Maria, despite what he calls her “la-di-da” ways, and is devoted to Ingrid. Twice he finds work on the mainland for his sister, Barbro, but, afraid she’ll be unhappy, he brings her home both times. Rooted to the land where he farms and tied to the sea where he fishes, Hans struggles to maintain his family’s hardscrabble existence on an island where every repair is a struggle against the elements. But his efforts are Sisyphean. Life as a Barrøy on Barrøy remains precarious. Changes do occur in men’s and women’s roles, reflected in part by who gets a literal chair to sit on at meals, while world crises—a war, Sweden’s financial troubles—have unexpected impact. Yet the drama here occurs in small increments, season by season, following nature’s rhythm through deaths and births, moments of joy and deep sorrow. The translator’s decision to use roughly translated phrases in conversation—i.e., “Tha’s goen’ nohvar” for "You’re going nowhere")—slows the reading down at first but ends up drawing readers more deeply into the world of Barrøy and its prickly, intensely alive inhabitants.
A deeply satisfying novel, both sensuously vivid and remarkably poignant.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77196-319-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.
In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.
Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.Pub Date: May 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014
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