This engaging drama offers a stirring exploration of a family embroiled in the Vietnam War.
This novel illustrates one family’s struggles on two fronts during an increasingly unpopular war.
In this fifth volume of the Jon and Teresa Zachery series, the Vietnam War is ramping up again in 1972. Teresa is handling the homefront at a naval base in California with three young children to distract her from her fears for her Navy pilot husband, Jon, code-named Stretch. Meanwhile, Jon is aboard the aircraft carrier USS Solomons, headed across the Pacific for his second deployment to Vietnam. He wrestles with his doubts as he recalls his first tour as converting jungle trees into toothpicks in South Vietnam. But the new policy is to mine Haiphong Harbor and take the fight to “The North,” which feels more worthwhile to Jon, as if the United States is trying to win the war. Much of the book is told through letters between Jon and Teresa, with her supporting him and him downplaying the dangers he faces. Readers are introduced to the much-respected Jon’s fellow pilots through their interactions between missions. Jon’s particular cross to bear is his roommate, Blackey, whose ego is barely exceeded by his piloting skills. The narrative hinges on Blackey’s disobeying orders on a mission with Jon, putting the protagonist in peril. But that crisis does set up Jon’s next chapter. Zerr, a longtime naval aviator, flew 330 combat missions over Vietnam. Thus, this sobering series has a strong authenticity regarding daily activities both aboard the carrier and at home. On the flip side, the author goes heavy on the military jargon, making the glossary in the back of the novel indispensable. In addition, there are a lot of players to keep track of, so the character list comes in handy. Zerr also places the Zacherys’ Christian faith front and center, as that helps them to temper their dread. This is a refreshing tack to follow amid the terrors of war. In this engrossing and moving work, the author emphasizes the point that war can be hell both for those overseas and their loved ones at home.
This engaging drama offers a stirring exploration of a family embroiled in the Vietnam War.Pub Date: July 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-957676-25-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Primix Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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