A sometimes-charming modern cowboy tale that’s hampered by inconsistent characterization.
In Downing’s novel, a ragtag team from Happy, Texas, goes on a journey that will forever change how they view the world.
This epic, neo-Western tale begins by introducing Brother Bob,a lonely Methodist preacher who’s been stationed in Happy for the past eight years. The locals appreciate his religious inclusivity: “Unlike the other preachers,” Downing writes, “he made it a point not to go on about the cross, sin, and the blood of the lamb.” However, despite his success as a community leader, he lives a lonely life. Elsewhere in town, Jen, a highly empathetic woman, is stuck in a tense marriage with her alcoholic husband, Gil; her sister, Cheyenne, is mentally ill and struggles with visions of demons. James, Jen’s lover, is a cowboy and a brave and loyal presence in the community. Joaquin is a horse trainer who taught James everything he knows, but now it’s his turn to ask something of James. Joaquin’s granddaughter, Angelica, attempted to flee Guatemala when gang members killed her boyfriend, but she was taken captive—first by police, then by others. An unlikely team from Happy, including Joaquin, James, Cheyenne, Jen, and Brother Bob,unites in a bid to rescue Angelica before it’s too late. One of the most surprising features of Downing’s text is how he describes mental illness; Cheyenne is written as a whole person, rather than a diagnosis or case study: “When Cheyenne heard the demons were gone, her whole body seemed to melt into Jen’s embrace. She buried her face on Jen’s shoulder and said, ‘I was so scared, Jen. I was so scared.’” All the other characters ensure her autonomy is preserved and an entire chapter is dedicated to her point of view. However, the development of other characters, such as James and Jenn, are notably abrupt or absent. In addition, many plot points are awkwardly revealed through dialogue, as in characters’ speeches on immigration justice.
A sometimes-charming modern cowboy tale that’s hampered by inconsistent characterization.Pub Date: May 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781632997852
Page Count: 232
Publisher: River Grove Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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