Unapologetically confrontational, grimly poignant; a gritty depiction of LA vice and vicissitude.
A collection of short stories explores the dark corners of city life.
Los Angeles is both the setting and the unifying force behind these 11 tales of crime, false hope, and down-and-out disillusionment. Knight writes primarily in the third person, past tense, usually from multiple viewpoints within each story. This narrative omniscience allows readers to experience events from different perspectives and heightens the effect when lives and choices inexorably come together in an ill-fated concatenation. Such interconnectedness is most evident in “Tip the Barkeep” and “White Horse,” tales in which a murderer and drug dealer take refuge from pursuers who have links to the bars they hole up in, and “Night Windows,” about a patsy framed for a homicide who happens to be known to the investigating officer. Two stories are told in the first person, present tense: “Mouth Bay,” in which a self-centered woman fails to make the life changes that would render her a fit parent, and “That Dreaded Undertow,” in which a fisherman turns his life around but is dragged back down by his past. These notions—the power of children to inspire rehabilitation and the difficulty of escaping one’s history—form common, contrasting threads throughout the volume, clashing most notably in “Bleeders Abound,” in which a taxi driver trying to make good picks up a fare linked to his gangland past. Knight employs realistic dialogue and an immersive, staccato-style prose that deals directly with life in all its seedy, sordid details. The characters who emerge may be unlikable but are very real and distinctly memorable, from the reclusive, would-be good Samaritan of “Vin Scully Eyes” to the aging party girl of “Full Bloom” and the rehabbed bartender (“I don’t drink”) of “Angels Live Here.” The last two are wistful vignettes of lives gone astray early and never corrected. The first tale is more plot-driven and emphasizes how wrong it is to shut out the world yet how letting it in can end badly. Indeed, few of these stories have happy endings. The collection’s tales work well together, and Knight’s writing will pull readers in—a kind of literary mugging that will leave them wiser and sadder. Noir enthusiasts will grant their somber approval.
Unapologetically confrontational, grimly poignant; a gritty depiction of LA vice and vicissitude.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2022
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 241
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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