A satisfying, feel-good novel about human shortcomings, perseverance and serendipity.
Big changes befall the sleepy town of Timber Lake, Mich., in a novel about ordinary people who try to achieve extraordinary goals after a local man finds God during a night of heavy drinking.
After an inebriated revelation, Cooper Moon sets out to build a church in the woods behind his trailer, with no money or education to ease his way. But what he lacks in biblical literacy and financial resources, he makes up for in charisma and blind faith. With the help of the young neighborhood troublemaker, TJ, who has set his sights on winning a network television competition, World Wide Warrior, Cooper navigates new religious and spiritual territory and makes key changes in his own life. He quits drinking, swearing and cheating on his ever-patient wife, Sally. Amid a memorable cast of characters—including cunning lovers, resentful husbands and a skeptical pastor—determined to throw him off his righteous track, Cooper traverses the precarious path to fulfilling his newfound vision. The plot crescendos when TJ goes off to compete in World Wide Warrior, the pastor unexpectedly revives his own faith, and spiteful supporting characters find creative ways to meddle in Cooper’s life even as he delivers a unforgettable, climactic sermon. At its core, this is a story about class, karma and ordinary people trying to accomplish difficult goals that require extraordinary strength of body, mind and spirit. Cooper contemplates his calling to build a church: “I’m broke. I’ve never even read the Bible….Why wouldn’t God just give this same idea to a rich guy who knows the Bible?” In an attempt to answer his own question, Cooper considers Moses: “God could have parted the sea before they ever got there and made a clear path for them. But he didn’t. He didn’t part the sea until they stepped into it.” And indeed, this novel suggests that hope, good humor and moral fortitude are keys to realizing one’s dreams. Packed with biblical analysis and pop-philosophy, this book has a strong, engaging voice that encourages readers to reflect on their own calling.
A satisfying, feel-good novel about human shortcomings, perseverance and serendipity.Pub Date: July 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478153658
Page Count: 360
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.
Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives, and their even more tangled relationship with each other.
Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real.
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780374602635
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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