Lovely, though with a doleful view of the possibilities of peace, love, and understanding, whether among nations or within...
Pensive, sometimes even brooding novel by Oz (Between Friends, 2014, etc.), widely considered Israel’s greatest living writer.
If there had been no Judas, there would have been no crucifixion and no Christianity. Should Christians—and Jesus, for that matter—be grateful to Judas, then? This question and a host of related queries resound through the halls of Gershom Wald’s Jerusalem apartment, its floors groaning under the burden of books and memories. Shmuel Ash is a bit more than a shlimazel, but he’s had a run of bad luck all the same: his parents’ business has failed, meaning that his allowance has disappeared, and meanwhile his girlfriend has gone off and married someone else. Apart from burying himself in a thesis on Jewish views of Jesus, what else can he do? Well, for one thing, he can fall in love with the sizzling widow who also lives in Wald’s place, where Shmuel has been taken on as a kind of live-in intellectual foil. Why Atalia lives there requires some ferreting out, and suffice it to say that her presence involves echoes of betrayal, perceived or real: “They called him a traitor,” says Wald of still another shadowy presence in that darkened, bookish house, “because he fraternized with Arabs.” Oz does not overwork what could be an oppressive and too-obvious theme, and he is the equal of Kundera in depicting the kind of love that is accompanied more by sighs of impatience and reproval than of desire satisfied. One thing is for sure: just as Judas is foreordained to betray Jesus, Shmuel is destined to fall for Atalia; even the cynical, world-weary Wald allows that he should surrender to her: “You no longer have any choice.” Naturally, the ending isn’t quite happy—we would not be in the land of Oz otherwise—but it is perfectly consonant with the story leading to it.
Lovely, though with a doleful view of the possibilities of peace, love, and understanding, whether among nations or within households.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-46404-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
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