Set largely during a long car trip, a mother-and-son novel with compelling psychological gear shifts but not enough traction.
The belated second installment of the Swiss novelist’s semiautobiographical remembrance of his wealthy family’s Nazi-stained past.
In Kracht’s Faserland (1995), the young author of a novel with that title wandered across Europe, kissing off the 1980s with his aimlessness and addictions. Picking up where that book left off, Kracht’s sequel begins in Zurich, where the fictional novelist, Christian, goes to care for his 80-year-old mother, newly released from a mental institution. Subsisting on vodka and barbiturates, she is, “like Miss Havisham, caught in a spider web of resentment, fury, and loneliness.” So, in his cynical fashion, is Christian, still grappling with childhood abuses. His mother’s malicious bag of tricks included feigning death on the laundry room floor. When not dancing to Dietrich in women’s clothing, his father lived to torment and debase others. And Christian’s maternal grandfather was an active Nazi sympathizer. Christian, who loves his mother despite everything, decides to take her on a long road trip in a hired car before putting her back in the mental hospital. During the journey, we learn that he wore makeup from the age of 13 to 27, wishes he had David Bowie’s crooked teeth, and prefers spy thrillers to the intellectual classics his mother tries to force on him. He uses the trip to give away her vast savings, “money we had swindled from arms factories,” and she hopes to see an edelweiss flower for the first time. A leading figure in European postmodernism, the 57-year-old Kracht offsets Christian’s rock-generation disillusionment with charged language. As entertaining as that is, this novel feels incomplete. It needs to be read with its short predecessor—and its possible successor(s)—to achieve lasting power.
Set largely during a long car trip, a mother-and-son novel with compelling psychological gear shifts but not enough traction.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781324094562
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
A moving, realistic look at one woman’s post-divorce family life that manages to be both poignant and funny.
A recently divorced writer juggles a chaotic full house, a struggling career, and a confusing romantic life.
Lila Kennedy thought she had the perfect family—a loving mother, a doting stepfather, two wonderful daughters, and a great husband. She even wrote a self-help book about repairing a marriage, which was published a mere two weeks before her husband left her. After her own mother’s sudden death, Lila finds herself an unexpected single mom with her health-nut stepfather, Bill, for a roommate. When her long-absent actor father, Gene, moves in, things go from crowded to chaotic. When Gene isn’t talking about his memories of starring on a Star Trek–like television show, he’s starting fights with Bill. Perhaps the worst part is that Lila’s supposed to produce a new book about the unexpected direction her life has taken. She quickly finds that writing about her real-life romantic exploits (including the kind gardener Bill hired and the sexy single dad she lusts after at school pick-up) and the actual heartbreak that upended her family is easier said than done. Moyes creates a world that is believable and funny. It’s hilarious to read about the distinct characters in Lila’s life—such as her lentil-loving stepfather and egocentric biological father—interacting with each other. There’s plenty of drama here, but none of it feels forced. It all comes from flawed people doing their best to coexist and making plenty of mistakes along the way. Moyes combines the warmth of an Annabel Monaghan rom-com with the humanity of a Catherine Newman novel, creating a story that will provoke tears and laughter.
A moving, realistic look at one woman’s post-divorce family life that manages to be both poignant and funny.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781984879325
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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
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