Medwed’s signature wit does not overcome the vapid, overly sanguine plot.
Mothers-in-law are the villains in the newest comedy from Massachusetts resident Medwed (How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life, 2006, etc.).
As the novel opens, narrator Maisie is trying to decide what to do with a container of frozen breast milk that has been left in her freezer. The milk belongs to ex-boyfriend lawyer Jack’s pro bono client Darlene, whose ex-mother-in-law is suing for custody of Darlene’s 15-month-old son. When Jack asks Maisie to hire Darlene as an assistant at her company, Factotum Inc., how can she refuse? After all, Maisie’s own marriage to Rex, heir to a frozen-chicken business, failed largely because Rex could not stand up to his overbearing mother, who has always been “Mrs. Pollock” to Maisie. Now Mrs. Pollock is trying to horn in on Maisie’s 16-year-old son Tommy. Maisie herself isn’t too crazy about Tommy’s new girlfriend September, especially when the kids announce that since September’s mother—a true no-good mom—has kicked her out, she’s moving in with Tommy and Maisie. Then Mrs. Pollock finds a baggie of mysterious white powder while searching Tommy’s backpack. At the hospital where Maisie takes the bag (the powder turns out to be gumdrop residue), she meets social worker Gabe. Gabe is a mama’s boy too, but luckily for Maisie, his mother is dead. Soon Maisie does some parenting of her own: She demands that September stay in school. September agrees. In fact, she embraces it, explaining that all she has ever wanted is a mother to give her advice. Meanwhile, Darlene is proving an excellent worker. At the custody hearing Maisie attends with Darlene to offer moral support, Darlene and her mother-in-law spar only briefly before finding common ground in their love for baby Anthony. The ease of resolution is as difficult to believe as Maisie’s attraction to bland Gabe.
Medwed’s signature wit does not overcome the vapid, overly sanguine plot.Pub Date: April 22, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-083121-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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