A profound and heartfelt meditation on the meaning of parenthood.
A collection of poetry for children and adults explores family ties.
The first section of this volume consists of blackout poetry for adults. The speaker awaits spring in “I” and imagines a perfect morning in “III.” He wonders how he became a 38-year-old father of two in “V” and contemplates midlife in “X.” His “firecracker daughter” and her “volcano of energy” are the focus of “VII” while in “XIV,” the two talk about what their lives will look like when they’re both older. A moonlit stroll with the children inspires “IX.” He questions how one becomes “planted, rooted, sun-filled, lazily arrived” in marriage in “XVI.” Mosson composes a pair of message-in-a-bottle–style poems, one each for his daughter and son, in “XXVII” and “XXVIII.” The book’s second section contains traditional, shorter poems for children, including several pieces about the beauty of the moon as well as a celebration of the sunrise. The poet also touches on the struggle of kids to sleep at night and the calming power of maternal snuggles. Mosson has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize, and it is easy here to see why. His language is vibrant, as when he wishes for his “sleepy daughter to droop / into the living room,” describes how his children “tumble in squeals” on the porch, and recalls how his son “stomped to the playground steps with a wild surmise.” Many of the sentiments in these poems will be intimately familiar to parents: “I want / what’s wonderful for my children / silence behind eyelids when I sleep / pre-dawn with coffee and books to stretch out forever.” Mosson’s writing is steeped in tenderness, evident in lines like “I always thought / imagination meant walking in a moonlit field weeping.” The collection’s one flaw is the inclusion of notes—such as “Leave it raw? Is less, more?”—at the end of many poems. While revealing artistic vulnerability, the notes will make readers second-guess the author’s choices along with him and detract from the stunning conclusions of the poems.
A profound and heartfelt meditation on the meaning of parenthood.Pub Date: March 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-63-534849-1
Page Count: 42
Publisher: Finishing Line Press
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2021
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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