A vivid depiction of India under the British Raj and an indictment of its colonizers.
In Howard’s historical novel, conflicts come to a boil in a colonial Indian household.
Twelve-year-oldGene Hinton is the youngest son in an American Baptist missionary family stationed outside of Calcutta in 1936, made up of his father, mother, and three older brothers. As a missionary, Gene is not a great success, but locals tolerate their presence. The story alternates his point of view with the Hintons’ longtime servant’s—Arthur, an Indian man. The novel begins with the anxiously awaited arrival of a man they call Uncle Ellis, a mysterious British figure who pops in and out of their lives. He’s a judge who’s taken leave of his position in the Indian city of Simla for reasons that are unclear, accompanied by a bodyguard of Afghan soldiers. The boys have always been fascinated by Uncle Ellis, but as the days go on, they—and especially Gene—sense something unnerving about the fact that he’s effectively moved in with them, far from where Ellis usually lives. Arthur is even more attuned to the newcomer’s arrogance and casual cruelty, and later, Ellis’ secret finally comes to light. Also, Jaya, a mysterious young Indian woman, shows up, seduces Arthur, and awakens him to love and to the Indian Nationalist cause. Violence ensues, and in the end, everyone must face disturbing truths. Howard sketches Gene with skill, showing him to be quite mature and perceptive for someone so young. Of all the brothers, Gene is the most sensitive to his surroundings and the only one who’s a real friend to Arthur. The Hinton family’s cluelessness about India and its people is underscored time and again, and the oldest brother, John, has the air of superiority that was typical of many colonists. Arthur is characterized as someone who’s fended for himself since he was young and considers it a blessing to have a reliable job. Indeed, he’s resigned to his servitude until Jaya changes his worldview. Ellis’ vile attitudes about race are exposed, and Howard ably shows him to be a nasty piece of work.
A vivid depiction of India under the British Raj and an indictment of its colonizers.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781647427986
Page Count: 288
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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