There’s more going on here than the narrative can comfortably contain, but Gutcheon gets an A for effort and a solid B for...
The wounds inflicted by bad parenting, the complexities of a flawed but enduring marriage, and Denmark’s resistance to the Nazis: three compelling themes awkwardly yoked together in this ambitious latest from Gutcheon (More Than You Know, 2000, etc.).
The author’s gift for plunging readers directly into her story is evident on the first page, as three siblings sort through the belongings of their parents, who have died together in the family’s summer home. Gutcheon then moves back to trace the history of Leeway Cottage in Maine and the miserable childhood of Sydney Brant, anxious daughter of cold, disapproving Candace. In 1938, Sydney falls in love with expatriate Danish pianist Laurus Moss, drawn to his warmth and delighted to shock her snobbish mother by marrying the grandson of a baker. The newlyweds spend a happy summer at Leeway in 1941, but when Laurus leaves a pregnant Sydney that fall to aid the European war effort, the narrative takes a sharp, startling turn. Sydney drops out almost completely for a hundred pages devoted to Laurus’s family, particularly his sister Nina, one of the many Danes who risk their lives and save nearly all of the nation’s Jews. By the time Nina is liberated from Ravensbruck concentration camp and Laurus returns to America, the grim Danish section has laid the groundwork for an entirely different perspective on Sydney. The unloved girl who seemed so appealing is revealed as a damaged, angry and selfish woman, though Gutcheon deftly drops in a few admirable acts to remind us no one is entirely good or all bad. Laurus remains steadfastly loyal, to the bewilderment of their three children as the narrative moves with increasing speed and selectiveness through the subsequent half-century. A harrowing account of Nina’s ordeal at Ravensbruck makes an odd precursor to the final chapter at Leeway. Yet Gutcheon’s insights are so keen, her sympathy for all her characters so contagious, that the story’s imperfect structure can almost be forgiven.
There’s more going on here than the narrative can comfortably contain, but Gutcheon gets an A for effort and a solid B for achievement.Pub Date: May 10, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-053905-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2005
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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