A richly textured saga that brilliantly captures the fraying social fabric of contemporary life.
A gay man navigates the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on a hellish mass-transit system in Townsend’s fraught picaresque novel.
It’s the summer of 2021, and Todd Tillotson, a 60-year-old ex-Mormon, commutes to his job as a supermarket cashier on Seattle’s municipal buses and light-rail lines. In addition to the ordinary travails of slow travel times and erratic schedules, he gets in tussles over masking rules—“Do you need some help keeping your mask up?” he asks a woman with a brazenly uncovered nose—and has other conflicts with obstreperous passengers. He feels lonely since the death of his husband, Brigham, who was hit by a car while they were marching in a Black Lives Matter protest, and he thinks that his heavy physique, due to the effects of AIDS and diabetes, will keep him from ever finding a new love. Todd finally takes steps to get out of his rut: He loses some weight, makes efforts to attract men (sporting a T-shirt reading “Consenting Adult” and “Just Say Yes”), and enjoys casual but gratifying hookups followed by a serious relationship with a bus driver named Carson. Then he’s blindsided by a shocking outbreak of violence. Townsend offers a marvelously detailed portrait of a big-city transit system, with bleary-eyed working stiffs, ranting inebriates, people carrying all their worldly belongings in garbage bags, anti-vaccination protesters, conspiracy theorists, and rushes of elation and despair. Todd is shown to be raptly observing all this, with his White liberal guilt making him painfully aware of his privilege; his unease is only heightened by pandemic paranoia and a freak heat wave with a portent of climate catastrophe. Townsend’s writing delivers deadpan humor, sharp characterizations, and vivid evocations of down-and-out Seattle. But despite all these apocalyptic imaginings, the author also points out how Todd manages to focus on small, steady tasks—“I simply tried to pay attention, be willing to reevaluate, accept correction and do a tiny bit better the next day”—that add up to a triumph of humane sensibility.
A richly textured saga that brilliantly captures the fraying social fabric of contemporary life.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64719-938-8
Page Count: 314
Publisher: Booklocker.com
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
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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