A tender meditation on the unseen moments that shape history and the human spirit.
A deathbed confession opens into a journey through the history of the Philippines and a nuanced exploration of deep spiritual questions.
From a hospital bed where he is suffering complications from kidney surgery, Angelito Macaraeg begins a letter to his estranged son. Lito insists that he simply intends to tell “a good story”—something that might be useful for his son’s career as an American journalist. However, the deeper Lito delves into his memories, the more apparent becomes his struggle to make peace with the past. As Lito tells the story of his youth in the Philippines, he recounts his mother's murder, his father’s frequent disappearances, a troubling experience in the mountains at a Communist camp run by a retired “magical” priest, the experience of falling in love with his son’s mother and the circumstances that led to their estrangement. He also relives his formative experiences as a chauffeur for Corazon Aquino, who led the People Power Revolution of 1986 and later became president of the Philippines after her husband’s assassination. At the center of Lito’s reckoning with the past is a secret meeting between Mrs. Aquino and Imelda Marcos, the wife of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose extravagant lifestyle earned her the unofficial title “the Lady of the Thousand Shoes.” There is something almost Kierkegaard-ian in the way Go weaves together fictional narrative and nuanced explorations of forgiveness, redemption, guilt, and commitment to one’s ideals. His attention to historical detail breathes life into the novel’s philosophical inquiry, which avoids didacticism while striking at the heart of some of the most pressing questions of the human condition. Despite its often dramatic subject matter, Go’s narrative burns slowly, gracing the novel with an understated yet profound power.
A tender meditation on the unseen moments that shape history and the human spirit.Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780374606947
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
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
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
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