Sober and smart writing that evokes the more mannered American stylists of the 1960s and '70s.
A clutch of well-crafted stories, thick with literary references, that turn on busted relationships between men and women and fathers and sons.
Harold Brodkey, James Joyce, J.F. Powers, Henrik Ibsen—each of these writers finds his way into the eight stories in this first work of fiction by Coffey (Days of Infamy, 1999, etc.). The name-checked authors hint at some of Coffey’s chief concerns—masculinity and faith most prominently—as well as his approach to style. “Inn of the Nations” centers on a priest who’s lost his passion for his calling and pursues an affair with a nun; set shortly after the JFK assassination, the brief story describes how “he’d become hardened to his own sin” but is without religious sanctimony. The broader “Sons” pursues a similar theme, following an alcoholic poet as he worries that his son is complicit in a calamity that makes national news; in Coffey’s hands, the man’s drunken fog reveals his self-loathing even while he busily labors to obscure it. This collection's stories are carefully chiseled, and the prose is sometimes stiff, but Coffey will occasionally cut loose, as in the closing “Finishing Ulysses,” which follows a professor eager to teach Joyce’s classic who’s out on the town in Philadelphia. Though short, the story has an appealingly jazzy, impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness rhythm. (“Smokes you need and why not the bennies. Some jump. Setting sun crashing into the façade of the church over there.”) Most of these stories capture men in decline, but one of the collection’s best is more tender: In “The Newman Boys,” the narrator recalls his brief childhood acquaintance with a neighbor boy diagnosed with hydrocephaly; the story captures the narrator’s narcissism, fears, confusions about adulthood—and, in its closing pages, a sense of how small kindnesses can resonate across decades.
Sober and smart writing that evokes the more mannered American stylists of the 1960s and '70s.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-934137-86-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
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
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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