A sharp, media-centric satire set in a rebellious America.
A comic historical novel chronicles the adventures of an 18th-century printer.
Boston, 1773. War with Britain is brewing in the Colonies, but that’s the last thing London-born Leeds Merriweather wants. Though his pride and joy is his newspaper, the New England News-Journal, most of the printer’s income actually comes from contracts he has with the British-appointed governor. When his partner gambles away a controlling share in the paper to the powerful Tory Clinton Murdoch, Leeds is pressured to turn his neutral News-Journal into a full-throated supporter of British rule. Just as he’s learning about his imminent editorial shift, he meets—and completely falls for—the beautiful Sally Hughes. The sex worker and patriot uses her position at the Flagg Alley Bordello to learn compromising tidbits about members of the British military and government. Sally and Leeds decide to hatch a scheme together. Using Sally’s contacts and Leeds’ press, they publish the anonymous Watertown Times-Forger, a tabloid airing the dirty secrets of Britain’s agents in Massachusetts. Leeds soon finds himself working both sides of the propaganda war, a member of the governor’s advisory committee by day and a rebel pamphleteer by night. It’s all well and good until the British decide to root out the culprits behind the publication—and hang them for treason. From the Boston Tea Party to the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Leeds finds himself at the center of the tensions between the British government and the rebellious colonists. He and Sally must play their cards exactly right to help the American cause without giving themselves away. Luckily, Leeds is a newsman of extraordinary cunning and flexibility, but whether that’s enough to capture the hearts and minds of the reading public—or the affections of the feisty woman he’s working beside—remains to be seen.
Brill’s prose, as narrated by Leeds, is nimble and witty, revealing the opportunistic contradictions at work in the hungry journalist: “I didn’t mind Hancock’s politics for they made for good copy. But to describe…one of the richest and most politically active members of Boston” being “led to jail in irons would be something for which I would sacrifice my left pinky—my right pinky being needed to work the printing press.” This sequel to The Patterer (2013) is filled with the sort of cameos and alternate history tales that one expects from such a novel, and they are done well. But the real accomplishment is the way the author re-creates the media concerns of the audience’s own day—issues of bias, control, fake news, and sensationalism—within the context of events leading up to the American Revolution. Leeds tends to look after his own self-interest most of all, which both contributes to readers’ enjoyment and makes a compelling statement about freedom of the press. There are a few moments that are perhaps a bit too self-aware—Leeds ends up composing a rough draft of America’s founding document—but overall the book is a fun and satisfying read.
A sharp, media-centric satire set in a rebellious America.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9960834-4-7
Page Count: 276
Publisher: Black Tie Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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