A moving exploration of the profound costs of trying to be a good person.
In this novel, a teenage boy fails to stop a rape committed by a high school football star and becomes locked within the legal and moral drama that ensues.
In 1963, Danny Prescott is an ordinary 16-year-old boy in Banning, Iowa, who is unaccustomed to being noticed by the likes of Brent Arrington, a star high school football player and the “closest thing Banning had to a celebrity.” So Danny, who is also on the football team, is surprised when Brent asks him for a ride to the home of Loretta Tinsley, a 13-year-old girl in junior high. While there, Brent and Loretta disappear into a hay loft, where Brent rapes her and casually emerges unperturbed by her anguished cries, grotesquely satisfied by his conquest. Danny does nothing to help her and even gives Brent a ride back to town. Danny quickly becomes emotionally overwhelmed by his cowardly inaction, which finally leaves him “shimmering with shame and humiliation,” an ignominy sensitively depicted by Whipple. Loretta presses charges, and Brent is arrested for rape while Danny is considered an accessory to the assault. Danny desperately wants to atone for his part in Loretta’s agony, especially after she attempts suicide, and tells the truth about what he saw. He even pines to testify against Brent. But Danny becomes the town pariah—some hate him because he won’t defend Brent, who makes a state football championship possible, and others because they see him as the star athlete’s accomplice. The school’s principal, Mr. Larson, tries to expel Danny, and local mothers take up a petition to remove him from school. Coach Esker discourages Danny from continuing to play football, and many of his teammates, Brent’s “loyalists,” shun him. Even worse, Brent assaults him brutally and threatens to kill him if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut.
Whipple’s moral drama is layered with complexity—the Prescotts have a long and fraught relationship with the Arringtons. This is especially impressive given the ordinariness of this town—Danny calls it a “grease spot on an Iowa map”—which serves as a perfect stage for the story, a small place that gives birth to big sins. At the heart of the novel is a delicately portrayed maturation of Danny—this unassuming virgin who longs to escape the aching provinciality of his life is compelled to grow up fast and ask himself hard questions about what it means to be a man. Whipple’s writing is generally poetically unembellished, but its plainness is the source of its gathering power, and it brings into sharp relief the averageness of those who participate in this moral contest. Here, Loretta’s father, Evert, confronts Danny regarding his responsibility for her rape: “Why didn’t you help my little girl? They say you’re a good kid. Why didn’t you help her when she cried out?…Why would someone she considered a friend…bring a monster to our farm?” This is an absorbing look into the ways even the most ordinary human beings can suddenly become key players in a terrible drama.
A moving exploration of the profound costs of trying to be a good person.Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9798218534776
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Whipple Prestige Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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