Trinidadian writer Lovelace (The Wine of Astonishment, 1984, etc.) returns after a long hiatus with a tale that starts out as an affecting Caribbean version of It's A Wonderful Life, then disappointingly turns into a flat riff on race and the past. Alford George, the youngest son of a poor Trinidadian farm worker, is a slow starter. He doesn't speak until he's six, and that's only after his mother, fearing she's being punished for neglecting her African roots, consults a traditional healer. Later, Alford dreams of leaving Trinidad and going to England, where so many islanders head to make better lives. England is for him ``more than a place,'' it is ``a mission, a Sacred Order that brought him into meaning, into Life,'' and he systematically begins to prepare himself to emigrate. His early school years, however, are not propitious: He is neither a good student nor an athlete. But Alford perseveres, studying the dictionary, listening to the BBC, running errands for teachers, and becoming an umpire. By his 20s, he's a respected schoolteacher, able to keep order and inspire children, but his undimmed dream of leaving the island is repeatedly deferred as he gives his earnings to his father to build a house, then is drawn into local controversies. Appalled by an educational system that neglects most of its students, he eventually mounts a hunger strike in the capital to draw attention to the problem. Soon Alford's courted by politicians who encourage him to stand for parliament. And it's here that the story begins to lose its charm and vigor: Various voices, including those of the descendants of Asian indentured laborers, white planters, and slaves, break into the narrative to tell their own stories, diluting the novel's impact. Though Alford realizes that his mission in life is in fact to make life better on his island, his epiphany has been greatly diminished. An evocative story that tries too hard.
Pub Date: March 10, 1997
ISBN: 0-89255-226-3
Page Count: 260
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1997
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
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.
In her first novel to be published in English, South Korean writer Han divides a story about strange obsessions and metamorphosis into three parts, each with a distinct voice.
Yeong-hye and her husband drift through calm, unexceptional lives devoid of passion or anything that might disrupt their domestic routine until the day that Yeong-hye takes every piece of meat from the refrigerator, throws it away, and announces that she's become a vegetarian. Her decision is sudden and rigid, inexplicable to her family and a society where unconventional choices elicit distaste and concern that borders on fear. Yeong-hye tries to explain that she had a dream, a horrifying nightmare of bloody, intimate violence, and that's why she won't eat meat, but her husband and family remain perplexed and disturbed. As Yeong-hye sinks further into both nightmares and the conviction that she must transform herself into a different kind of being, her condition alters the lives of three members of her family—her husband, brother-in-law, and sister—forcing them to confront unsettling desires and the alarming possibility that even with the closest familiarity, people remain strangers. Each of these relatives claims a section of the novel, and each section is strikingly written, equally absorbing whether lush or emotionally bleak. The book insists on a reader’s attention, with an almost hypnotically serene atmosphere interrupted by surreal images and frighteningly recognizable moments of ordinary despair. Han writes convincingly of the disruptive power of longing and the choice to either embrace or deny it, using details that are nearly fantastical in their strangeness to cut to the heart of the very human experience of discovering that one is no longer content with life as it is.
An unusual and mesmerizing novel, gracefully written and deeply disturbing.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-553-44818-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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