A thorough, exacting, and engrossing tale of Capra’s personal and professional life.
A historical novel dramatizes the life of filmmaker Frank Capra.
In 1903, in search of a better life, Capra’s family moves from Bisacquino, a small village in Sicily it called home for generations, to the United States, starting over in Los Angeles. Pressured by dire financial straits, young Francesco Capra—he is rechristened Frank in America—sells newspapers to help make ends meet while his father, Salvatore, shines shoes. Capra displays signs of “obvious intelligence” at a young age, but his mother shows little interest in his education—a singularly practical woman, she pushes him to work and contribute to the household. Nevertheless, Capra graduates from high school with a flowering interest in the arts and attends the Throop College of Technology, where he is given his first opportunity to seriously study film. Fuglei studiously catalogs Capra’s rise from inauspicious obscurity to international acclaim—he directs his first low-budget film in 1922 when only 25 years old, and in 1935 his film It Happened One Nightwins multiple Academy Awards. The author’s prose is more diligent than literary—she tends to use clichés and can be bloodlessly earnest in her depictions of Capra, which border on hagiographic: “Frank Russell Capra was in America, and he was going to pursue his own freedom and happiness. It was his right now. And no one was going to stop him.” But she thoughtfully portrays the challenges Capra faces in a world that both needs and discriminates against immigrants. In addition, she delicately limns the complex contours of his political commitments and the way he “straddled the line between his Republican beliefs and anti-union sentiments and his leadership of the Academy and the Screen Directors Guild.” Despite its defects, this work delivers an excellent synopsis of Capra’s intriguing and accomplished life.
A thorough, exacting, and engrossing tale of Capra’s personal and professional life.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-947431-39-3
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Mentoris Project
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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