A fascinating, electric account of a heroic woman.
This debut tells the story of Virginia Hall, an American spy for the Allies in World War II.
Hall (1906-1982) was a real woman and an amazing one. But rather than tell the story as straight history, Gralley has chosen to turn it into a novel with Hall as the protagonist and first-person narrator—an inspired decision. As if her life would not prove challenging enough, early on, Hall lost her lower left leg in a hunting accident. As a result, she gained an intimate lifelong companion, a wooden prosthesis that she named Cuthbert. It was, needless to say, a love-hate relationship. She would sometimes encourage Cuthbert, but more often, she would berate him. Hall spent the early years of the war under various guises as a spy based in Lyon. The northern half of France was German occupied; the southern half—the Vichy government—was also under German control but existed under the thinly veiled illusion that it was free. Danger was a constant. Right off the bat, Hall’s “pianist,” her “covert radio operator,” was found out and killed. The high point in the story is her escape into Spain, trudging over the Pyrenees in winter, the Gestapo hot on her trail. There is no question that Hall was indefatigable. But Gralley’s treatment really brings that aspect home. We get to know Hall firsthand, in all her tortured and scary moments. What pervades the novel like a miasma is the sensation of being a spy, a deceiver, to be always—always—on guard. She has the human feelings that we all have, but she cannot indulge them, and this, too, eats at her. The fact of Cuthbert has shut off avenues to advancement, but there is also the fact that she is a woman. Time and again she has to prove herself (and prove herself she does), but it seems never enough until a final triumph. She receives commendations from Britain and her own country but dodges the accompanying ceremonies, having further work to do.
A fascinating, electric account of a heroic woman.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-73354-150-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Chrysalis Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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