by Donna Hemans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 30, 2024
Hemans’ thoughtful family tale is a balm for readers.
After living in Brooklyn for more than 30 years, a woman returns to her childhood home in Jamaica.
At 93, Rupert Greaves is not long for this world, and Pearline, his 60-something daughter, has returned to her childhood home to be by his side in his final days. In the U.S., Pearline is still viewed as an outsider, a “resident alien” after three decades, and she hopes to find a sense of belonging in her homeland. She soon learns the hard truth that returning home is far from easy. “Sometimes she feels herself trying too hard...a feeling that she’s performing Jamaicanness.” Her sisters, Aileen and Hermina, see her as an interloper who’s been away too long to know the problems they face; young Claudia—the child of her father’s caretaker—has become her temporary responsibility. And then there’s the matter of her father’s baffling final wish. For the past 60 years, Rupert has refused to acknowledge the three adult children who stayed behind when the family returned to Jamaica from Cuba (as well as another who died as a child). His deathbed wish—“Find them for me. You are my memory now”—goes unheeded by her sisters, who want to sell the family land and wash their hands of it, but for Pearline, this responsibility weighs heavy. Despite Rupert’s charge, much of the novel is more a literary exploration of grief, family schisms, and belonging than a search for missing siblings. Fractured memories and dreams of the past infuse this unassuming story with a rich and elusive history spanning three countries, and they depict a family that’s more orchard than tree. The novel’s sedate pacing, which evokes rocking-chair musings on mortality and responsibility, brings a welcome reprieve from stories laden with plot twists and action for the sake of it.
Hemans’ thoughtful family tale is a balm for readers.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798986241814
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Zibby Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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by Donna Hemans
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by Donna Hemans
by Alison Espach ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2024
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
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New York Times Bestseller
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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SEEN & HEARD
by Margaret Atwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
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58
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New York Times Bestseller
Booker Prize Winner
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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edited by Margaret Atwood & Douglas Preston
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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