A thought-provoking novel about the mysterious ways that creative people use others for inspiration.
A New York City graduate student seeks out an elderly author as a primary source for her dissertation about women writers in this novel by Pall, author of Among the Ginzburgs (1996).
Liz Miller has spent nine years at Columbia University and is heavily in debt. Her incomplete dissertation, about mid-20th-century women writers, is in desperate need of more information about Anne Taussig Weil, author of the 1960s bestseller The Vengeance of Catherine Clark. The novelist has rebuffed Liz’s attempts at contact, but then a miracle happens: Liz sees a Craigslist ad for a room for rent in Greenwich Village that requires the applicant to be able to “read well.” She figures out that it was placed by Anne, so she replies, hoping that it’s her chance to finally interview the author. Liz, using the false name Beth, is offered the room and, to her delight, finds that her cheap rent comes with an obligation to read Anne’s old diaries to her. The writer is frail and visually impaired but still “looked commanding enough to have been the notorious author of a book that galvanized a generation,” according to Liz. The diaries recount a brief but massively consequential affair between Anne and a concert pianist. It’s a stroke of luck for Liz and her research, but her deceptive game leads toward a very uncertain future. Pall’s novel takes a deep dive into the personal lives of New York writers and musicians, and it has a premise that many readers are sure to find irresistible. Liz is revealed as hardworking and intelligent and crafty enough to get what she wants but also sympathetic. She is, however, no match for Anne, who’s portrayed as a grande dame who knows exactly how to handle a budding scholar such as Liz. The novel’s unpretentious sophistication and smart, savvy characters make it an enjoyable read—one that’s heightened by the unexpected and satisfying conclusion.
A thought-provoking novel about the mysterious ways that creative people use others for inspiration.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-61088-542-3
Page Count: 284
Publisher: Bancroft Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
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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