An inventive meditation on grief and art.
A widowed professor struggles with writing, coffee, antisemitism, and dance music.
The narrator of Haber’s elliptical, mordantly funny third novel can’t get his mind in order. Now that he’s left his job teaching humanities and philosophy at a community college—he won’t say if he quit or was fired—he’s determined to finish his long-gestating book-length essay on Montaigne. But interruptions abound. He’s still mourning the recent death of his wife from dementia, his DJ son keeps calling to natter on about trends in electronic dance music, and he can’t stop obsessing over his former employer’s disciplinary hearings or the artists’ retreat where he befriended a brilliant but troubled sculptor. The novel’s orthographic structure underscores the narrator’s near-derangement: The book is effectively three long paragraphs, rife with lengthy sentences that often end in very different places from when they began. So it’s not hard to see why the narrator’s book project has failed to come together, and his complaint that “the modern world has destroyed the ability to have a single unfettered thought” seems a scapegoating of his emotional disarray. As he shares more about his life, comic incidents rise to the surface, like his ill-fated effort to maintain an espresso machine under his classroom desk. But darker details emerge as well, about his wife’s rapid decline and the antisemitism the sculptor and her family experienced. Soon, the narrator’s obsession with finding space to think—a “mental Sahara,” as he puts it—begins to feel more like a dereliction of moral duty to his family and students. Though Haber tells this story in long sentences, the language never becomes ungainly or abstractly Gertrude Stein–like. And as the narrator cycles between joy, regret, and frustration, the language echoes his struggle. (“Was my life merely procrastination and delay, a false endeavor never to bear fruit?”) But while the narrator’s mind is chaotic, Haber’s command is steady.
An inventive meditation on grief and art.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781566897198
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Coffee House
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, realistic look at one woman’s post-divorce family life that manages to be both poignant and funny.
A recently divorced writer juggles a chaotic full house, a struggling career, and a confusing romantic life.
Lila Kennedy thought she had the perfect family—a loving mother, a doting stepfather, two wonderful daughters, and a great husband. She even wrote a self-help book about repairing a marriage, which was published a mere two weeks before her husband left her. After her own mother’s sudden death, Lila finds herself an unexpected single mom with her health-nut stepfather, Bill, for a roommate. When her long-absent actor father, Gene, moves in, things go from crowded to chaotic. When Gene isn’t talking about his memories of starring on a Star Trek–like television show, he’s starting fights with Bill. Perhaps the worst part is that Lila’s supposed to produce a new book about the unexpected direction her life has taken. She quickly finds that writing about her real-life romantic exploits (including the kind gardener Bill hired and the sexy single dad she lusts after at school pick-up) and the actual heartbreak that upended her family is easier said than done. Moyes creates a world that is believable and funny. It’s hilarious to read about the distinct characters in Lila’s life—such as her lentil-loving stepfather and egocentric biological father—interacting with each other. There’s plenty of drama here, but none of it feels forced. It all comes from flawed people doing their best to coexist and making plenty of mistakes along the way. Moyes combines the warmth of an Annabel Monaghan rom-com with the humanity of a Catherine Newman novel, creating a story that will provoke tears and laughter.
A moving, realistic look at one woman’s post-divorce family life that manages to be both poignant and funny.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781984879325
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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
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