A patchy, sensationalist tale that seems primarily invested in unsettling its readers.
A coming-of-age novel about a young man’s tragic family ties.
After 16-year-old Chester White got a girl named Shirley pregnant, he dropped out of high school to support his new family. Now 27, he hates his wife and is unsatisfied with his career as a jukebox and pool-table vendor. Shirley is unsettled by her hostile husband, but she finds some solace in raising their 11-year-old daughter, Patricia. One night, after Chester hears that Shirley publicly insulted him, he rapes Patricia in a drunken rage; the girl doesn’t tell her mother about the incident, but seven months later, she’s too sick to go to school. A blood test at the doctor’s office informs Shirley of the unthinkable: Her child is pregnant. She secures a late-term abortion for Patricia, but the doctor keeps Shirley out of the room when he performs his procedure. While Patricia is unconscious, the aging, childless doctor secretly induces labor; he then takes the baby home to raise and lies to Shirley about the infant’s fate. It’s a truly memorable setup for a novel. However, these initial details pass quickly; the bulk of the book is dedicated to the story of Patricia’s secret child, Logan. It chronicles his various trials and triumphs until he enters an elite boarding school at age 16 and meets his personal mentor—an attractive, older teacher named Patricia. Like all Oedipal stories, Moffatt’s (Beltway Justice, 2013) relies heavily on dramatic irony and a sense of destiny winding to a messy, inevitable conclusion. Logan is an intriguing protagonist who’s kind and loyal and has a strong sense of justice, and his occasional moments of violence and petty criminality will force the reader to question how much of Logan’s nature he inherited from his evil father. However, the author blunts this positive element with strangely truncated, staccato paragraphs (many are only a sentence long); redundancies (“Jack Reed started to hyperventilate anxiety”); rushed character development; and massive plot contrivances.
A patchy, sensationalist tale that seems primarily invested in unsettling its readers.Pub Date: March 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59630-103-0
Page Count: 398
Publisher: BeachHouse Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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