A richly meditative novel about aging and travel.
In Thompson’s literary novel, a widowed flâneur finds a second act in travel.
Kevin Brunner’s retirement in 2012 presents something of an existential crisis. An American expat who settled in Germany 30 years earlier, he’s spent half that time as a widower, throwing himself into his work as a biologist to distract himself from the grief he feels over his German wife’s death. Now, at age 63, he is alone—his adult son Dan has married and moved to Hong Kong—with a lot of time on his hands to sit at home and think. “I’d imagined a vague retirement plan, thinking all would be nice and easy with my free time of plenty. But now, a sense of being domesticated within a confined apartment crept in.” Experiencing an unprecedented wanderlust, Kevin decides to travel, and neighboring France is on the top of his list—due, in part, to the attractive Parisian, Adeline Toussaint, whom he recently met on a train. While cleaning up his flat, Kevin discovers evidence that his wife had carried on an affair with another man long ago—a revelation that causes him to feel as though he’s lost her a second time. Feeling new uncertainty about nearly every aspect of his life—including his identity as a husband, father, scientist, and expat—Kevin spends nearly a decade roaming the towns and cities of France, seeking catharsis in new places and people. Thompson succeeds in capturing the peculiar blend of pleasure and melancholy that comes from travel, the way novelty both distracts from and highlights the preoccupations of the traveler. “These trips, these constant motions,” narrates Kevin, “though taken at times with my unstable moods, had proved to be a panacea preventing me from revolving in dreariness. Happy moments existed, though it was an uphill road. Still, they were taking the reins these days. I’d try to make them last.” There isn’t much in the way of a traditional plot here, but Kevin’s peregrinations and the passage of time ensure the story is always moving.
A richly meditative novel about aging and travel.Pub Date: June 19, 2024
ISBN: 9798328712712
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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