Resonant and relevant at a time when so much of the world seems irretrievably rent by the past and politics.
Goodman explores the lingering trauma of Canada's mid-20th-century Duplessis orphan scandal, in which children in Quebec orphanages were declared mentally ill so the province could collect more money from the Canadian government, against the 1990s backdrop of the Quebecois struggle for independence in this sequel to The Home for Unwanted Girls (2018).
In the previous novel, after getting pregnant at 15, Maggie was forced to give up her baby to an orphanage run by the Catholic Church, and when she later came looking for the child, she was told her daughter was dead. It took more than 10 years for her to finally track down Elodie, whose childhood was a nightmare of abuse and neglect at the hands of the nuns and doctors. Now, nearly 20 years after Elodie was reunited with her family, she is grateful every day. At the same time, she feels like there is, and always will be, a hole in her life forged by the terrible treatment she suffered as a child in the orphanages. James, her younger brother, is fiercely mourning their father’s death; one night, after some heavy drinking, he makes a pass at Véronique Fortin, daughter of an infamous Quebecois separatist imprisoned for murdering a government official in the 1970s. James and Véronique quickly fall in love. Véronique has always struggled with her father’s legacy. As a young woman, she finds herself drawn to danger, earning money by smuggling illegal cigarettes and selling stolen CDs. And she’s a staunch separatist while James’ sympathies lie with Canadian unity. As a referendum draws near to determine Quebec’s future, their relationship will be sorely tested. While James and Véronique’s story unfolds in the foreground, Elodie and her fellow Duplessis orphans—the ones who survived—begin to fight for legal reparations from the church and government. Goodman explores two major events in recent Canadian history and how each of these expose deep wounds in the country and its people. The characters, complex and flawed, love and fight so fiercely that it’s hard not to be drawn into their passionate orbits and to feel, even slightly, a glimmer of hope as they refuse to give up on the ideal of happiness.
Resonant and relevant at a time when so much of the world seems irretrievably rent by the past and politics.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06299-831-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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