Brilliantly researched, imaginative cross-genre historical fiction.
A part fantastical ghost story, part romance focuses on Modigliani’s lover.
Paris, 1920: Italian painter Modigliani dies of consumption. Two days later, Jeanne Hébuterne, artist, model, and common-law wife of Modi, throws herself out the window of her parents’ home. Jeanne dies, but her spirit survives. Tethered to her body by an ethereal umbilical cord, she is prepared for burial in the artist studio she shared with Modi. As a ghost, no one hears her while she rails that the studio has been ransacked and Modi’s paintings have vanished. Her brother, André, collects her work but doesn’t find the piece she had not yet finished, the painting she was going to give Modi had he recovered. Modi had started a picture of her and their baby daughter but abandoned it. Jeanne took up the painting and added Modi’s figure but did not complete it before they both died. After her burial, Jeanne is no longer tied to her body and must navigate the afterlife, searching for Modi. Lappin’s striking afterlife creates a compelling secondary realm to the superbly researched, fleshed-out historical world in and around Paris. What could easily have been a biographical novel—one that ended with Jeanne’s death—is instead a far more intricate tale. The time periods include Paris, 1920; Vichy France under Nazi rule, 1941; and then another layer: 1981, when an art historian uncovers Jeanne’s work and journals. In this blend of world events, art history, and ghost story, one of the author’s greatest strengths is her worldbuilding. Death, from the very first page, is fully realized. The umbilical cord that initially connects Jeanne to her corpse is as “clear and stretchy as a jellyfish tentacle, and a bit sticky, like old egg whites. It shimmered like mother of pearl.” There are rules and a detailed bureaucracy in the world of the dead. One must have money to catch a train; the train has compartments based on class; and Jeanne must inquire about Modi’s whereabouts with the bureau, which is divided according to one’s religion. The book’s inventive afterlife is as vividly drawn as the streets of Paris.
Brilliantly researched, imaginative cross-genre historical fiction.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947175-30-3
Page Count: 263
Publisher: Serving House Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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