An insightful (if sometimes meandering) look at how the ripples of the past can unwittingly shape our future.
A struggling high school track coach is forced to confront his past when an old friend and rival reappears in his life in Penswick’s novel.
When readers first meet Turner, he’s living with his longtime girlfriend, Kim, and sleepwalking through his job as a teacher and track coach at Galt Tech High School outside Toronto. Originally hired to teach math, he’s now been “sentenced to English” by his vindictive principal and is focused on helping a talented track star, Donovan, break the record (set by a young Turner himself) at the upcoming Vintage Mile race. Turner’s past catches up to him when his former high school best friend, Lance, returns to Galt. Now a successful investment banker (in between jobs in the midst of the financial crisis), Lance dangles an “investment opportunity” in front of Kim, a real estate agent—an opportunity that may prove riskier than it first seems. Turner still resents Lance for winning the track scholarship that Turner had so desperately wanted back in high school before he blew out his knee during a race. As Lance begins joining Turner at track practice, the old rivalry instincts kick in as the two men compete for something more personal. But a tragic accident forces Turner to finally reconcile his past regrets, even as his relationship with Kim begins breaking down amidst their inability to conceive and he learns that Donovan has been silently struggling with an increasingly volatile home life. Turner decides that the only way for him to truly let go of his past demons is to compete one more time in the Vintage Mile.
Penswick excels at conveying Turner’s inner monologues and musings (of which there are many) with an endearing warmth that readers will likely sympathize with, even as they disagree with some of his choices. Turner’s long held grudge—believing that Lance “stole” his scholarship from him (although Turner’s injury cost him the prize)—can prove particularly frustrating, but it accurately represents a common failing of many former athletes (and people in general) who blame others for their own lost opportunities. The novel’s long and winding sentences demand readers’ utmost attention, but just when the thread of “he said,” “she said” extends until it’s difficult to remember who’s speaking in the first place, the author hits readers with startlingly astute observations of human nature: “All that time I’d been in Manhattan because it’s the centre of everything. But lately I’ve started thinking it might be like the eye of the storm, where nothing happens. Nothing real. Maybe real life happens out on the periphery, where there’s all the wind and mess.” Penswick explores not only the competitive world of high school sports, but also larger themes of physical abuse, infertility, infidelity, and trauma. While the love triangle aspect of the plot leaves something to be desired (mainly due to a conclusion that is likely to strike readers as a bit too tidy), it’s Turner’s struggle to move on from his past—and the insidious hold it still has on his present—that ultimately makes this such an engaging read. Fans of both deep character studies and sports fiction will find much to enjoy.
An insightful (if sometimes meandering) look at how the ripples of the past can unwittingly shape our future.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 979-8887938455
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Page Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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
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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