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THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

THE REDEMPTION OF THE DAMNED

An overlong but powerful tale of one young man’s sexual awakening.

A sequel focuses on a gay student coming into his own in early 1980s Detroit.

After an adolescence filled with fear and self-loathing, Jamie Goldberg has finally decided to come out of the closet. The college student chooses to do so the Sunday after Thanksgiving 1980 in the kitchen of his parents’ home in Northwest Detroit. “There,” narrates Jamie ruefully, “homosexuality scored another decisive yet Pyrrhic victory.” Despite his mother’s lifetime of involvement in progressive politics, she reacts with anger and disgust. His father asks him to leave, telling him, “Don’t come back until you’re cured.” Now that his parents are no longer paying for school, Jamie switches to his preferred major, theater, and throws himself into the work. He begins to experiment with his newfound freedom, but he still has concerns with the way others perceive him as well as learning hard lessons about love and sex. Jamie begins to develop a reputation for promiscuity after an incident involving his crush, Casper Tyres, and he starts to explore—sometimes willingly, sometimes not—the world of cruising. In certain bathrooms and parks, with acquaintances and strangers, Jamie finally becomes intimate with the peculiar and often frightening world of male sexuality. It’s made all the more difficult by the fact that he still has not yet reckoned with the act that initiated his sexual life: the rape he suffered as a young boy. As Jamie’s sex life quickly escalates to new heights, he realizes that he hasn’t found himself by coming out of the closet. In order to realize who the real Jamie Goldberg is, he still has a lot of work to do.

Taylor’s prose is smooth and often striking, creating memorable images that will stick in readers’ minds as much as they do in that of the impressionable Jamie: “We got in this old boat-like white Cadillac and drove down Woodward. Detroit, that late at night, resembled a demilitarized zone after curfew. Stores with thick metal bars; offices with small if any windows, protected by iron rails; and the occasional empty burned-out lot left exactly as it was after the 1968 riots.” The author skillfully portrays Jamie’s claustrophobic sense of himself in the world, beset on one side by the homophobia that constantly threatens his well-being and on the other by the lusts of men who do not have his best interests at heart. Between this rock and a hard place, Jamie festers in a stew of confusion and self-disgust. The book has a narrower time frame than the previous volume in the series, covering only a six-month period from 1980 to ’81. While the condensed period helps make the tale more palatable, there is still just too much of it. At over 400 pages,the book is bloated by superfluous scenes and redundant episodes, feeling more diaristic than novelistic on occasion. Taylor succeeds in capturing a time and place in Jamie’s life, but the story would likely have had a greater impact if the author had managed to show less of it.

An overlong but powerful tale of one young man’s sexual awakening.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-1-73429-570-2

Page Count: 414

Publisher: ArnoLand Press

Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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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

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IT STARTS WITH US

Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.

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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

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