An intricately plotted tale that draws readers in and makes French history come alive.
A novel chronicles one man’s fictional journey through the tumultuous second half of the 19th century in Paris.
Charles Fabron of Rouen has a thriving architectural practice and a beautiful young wife, Louisa, pregnant with twins. But it all comes crashing down when Louisa dies in childbirth along with the twin boys. Devastated, Charles reluctantly accepts a position in Paris with the dynamic Baron Haussmann, the emperor’s right-hand man overseeing a complete tearing down and rebuilding of the City of Light. Charles is angry to be named supervisor of demolition, but Haussmann’s legendary charm wins him over, and he throws himself into the work, which he finds that he enjoys and which helps him heal. One day, Daniel Lazare, a young boy, shows up, recommended as a runner, a messenger among all the projects. He proves himself almost indispensable and well liked. But suddenly, he is accused, falsely, of theft, and no matter how personable he is, it is well known in Paris that orphans and runaways like Daniel are robbers and liars. He takes off. The rest of the book is a hunt for him on Charles’ part and also the revelation that the architect has really been a puppet in his own life. Joaquim, a graceful writer, makes the most of an exciting period in French history—first the Second Empire, then the Prussian siege of Paris, and finally the Commune. Haussmann is toppled, becomes hated, and the Communards try to destroy his magnificent work. But the real story is the relationship between Charles and this mysterious boy who has disappeared. Readers follow Charles into old age, into what Milton called “calm of mind, all passion spent.” As Charles reflects, “A garden is like life. It never turns out quite the way you want it to.” But in the author’s poetic treatment, readers get a wonderful Dickensian denouement that glosses over some of the dicey coincidences. Readers will forgive Joaquim those improbable twists because they will want to believe in the characters and have love reaffirmed.
An intricately plotted tale that draws readers in and makes French history come alive.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7377559-0-6
Page Count: 321
Publisher: Montrose Hall
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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