High times with the mother of autofiction.
A dreamy sojourn in the druggy, sexy counterculture of mid-1970s Melbourne, Australia.
“There was plenty of good dope around. Gracie was at school. The sun shone every day. I rode my bike everywhere. I went to the library. I was reading two novels a day. When Gracie came home from school we would doze off on my bed in the hot afternoon. For days at a time there was no sign of Javo.” When this novel was first published in Australia in 1977, it was both a huge bestseller and the focus of critical outrage. Garner’s fiction debut was so closely modeled on her own life that she was accused of having published her diary. Her response was, essentially, so what? As for the novel’s title, its meaning is elucidated by protagonist Nora, cursing her obsession with Javo: “Smack habit, love habit—what’s the difference?” Javo himself is straight outta Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, the ultimate charming fuckup/hopeless addict. As a druggy single mom navigating a complicated web of open relationships, Nora has frequent recourse to the wisdom of the I Ching: “You gather friends around you / As a hair clasp gathers the hair.” However spotty the attention of the grown-ups, 5-year-old Gracie seems more than able to cope, at one point playing “downstairs by herself, singing and drawing and reading aloud great tracts of Baby and Child Care by Doctor Spock.” In an introduction to this edition, Lauren Groff speaks of feeling “gripped inexorably by Helen Garner’s marvelous prose” and finding the book to be “suffused with this sort of sideways happiness even in the deepest throes of Nora’s misery.” Hmmm, yes, though for some the grip may wear off somewhere in the middle of the 352 pages. Just as interesting as reading the book is reading about the book; with Garner now the literary queen of Australia, much thinking and rethinking about this seminal novel has gone on.
High times with the mother of autofiction.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780553387452
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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