A thoughtful case study that sometimes falls a bit flat as fiction.
The controversial construction of a dam throws a quiet Pennsylvania town into turmoil in this novel.
Even though Sam Kopco has been home from Vietnam for two years, he’s still beleaguered by the trauma of his memories, which visit him in flashbacks. He grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania in the Minisink Valley, an area now threatened by the construction of the Tocks Island Dam across the Delaware River by the Army Corps of Engineers. While some locals believe the dam will eventually be a boon to the economy, others worry about the ecological costs as well as the displacement of longtime residents from their land. Many complain that they’ve been poorly compensated for the property they’ve been ousted from—one woman, whose family had occupied her land for three generations, kills herself in despair when exiled from it. Meanwhile, Sam begins a romantic relationship with Holly, who works for the Monroe County Commissioner’s Office. But they keep their affair private since she’s in the midst of a messy divorce from Mark, whose father, Leo Kober, is her boss. Further complicating matters, Holly suspects Leo is tampering with official documents to hide the inflated prices he’s selling his land to the government for, despite the meager amounts others are fetching. Collins effectively relates the story from shifting first-person perspectives: Will Mead, a hippie academic attempting to establish a utopian community on land the federal government pines for; Loretta Shuster, a local who loses her farm and spearheads a campaign to block the dam project; Jack Neumann, the project manager for the dam’s construction who’s unconvinced it can be successfully built; and of course Sam and Holly. The author’s kaleidoscopic approach to narration produces a remarkably sympathetic rendering of warring interests—Collins trusts his readers to draw their own conclusions. But the writing is less than poetic—the dialogue in particular seems stiff and lifeless. In addition, the plot unfolds without sufficient discipline, meandering too far afield too often. But the restrained intelligence of the novel as a whole should appeal to those interested in the tension between economic revitalization and environmental responsibility.
A thoughtful case study that sometimes falls a bit flat as fiction.Pub Date: Feb. 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-692-97944-0
Page Count: 250
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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