A rare and unforgettable look inside a cloistered religious culture shrouded in obscurity.
Two young women struggle with their faith—and the pull of the world—in Linkas’ novel.
Welcome to the Academy of the Sorrows of Mary, a convent-cum-prep school run by French Canadian Jesuit nuns who could teach the Marines a thing or two about discipline. The two main characters are Sister Philippe de Marie, a postulant in the order, and Janey Chadderton, a student in the attached prep school. We meet Sister Philippe as Janey’s new English teacher who ditches Tennyson in favor of Gerard Manley Hopkins (yes, this is daring stuff, and the girls revel in it). The story takes place over Janey’s senior year, and the titular vows provide the tension. Sister Philippe is expected to be taking final vows at year’s end. The students are not committed to the religious life (though it is not discouraged), but they are expected to take “Perpetual Vows” at graduation, meaning that whatever the rest of their lives hold, they will remain committed to Christ and the Church. Sister Philippe and Janey fall into something very much like love, with all the Sturm und Drang that goes with it. Janey sees things that she shouldn’t, which really tests her faith. Clearly Janey is based on the author, who went to just such a prep school, and Sister Philippe is likely based upon her older sister, Claudia, the dedicatee. Linkas is a published poet, and her writing reflects this poetic sensibility. After a toboggan flips over, Sister Jean, badly hurt, is described as “a ball of nun” in the snow. Early on, the nuns are described as “like a swarm of insects attacking the arbor, clipping at pride, curbing friendships,” and they “revered the mind, worshiped the soul, ignored the body.” And yet, despite the pious subject matter, this is a warmhearted and at times wondrously funny book.
A rare and unforgettable look inside a cloistered religious culture shrouded in obscurity.Pub Date: July 18, 2024
ISBN: 9798888701980
Page Count: 289
Publisher: En Route Books & Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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
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BOOK REVIEW
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